Pocket battleship Jersey..
In the high-stakes world of international finance, Jersey could be likened to a “pocket battleship” – small, agile, and determined to outmanoeuvre much larger rivals – according to McKinsey Senior Partner Aleksander Petrov.
But, as global tides shift, can this Channel Island keep its edge?
To find out, Megan Davies went behind the scenes at Jersey’s latest financial services update, where ministers, regulators, and industry leaders faced tough questions about the future of a sector which contributes £3bn to the economy, supports more than 14,000 jobs and helps fund the services we all rely on.
Here’s what they had to say about Jersey’s place in the global race, the threats it faces from heavyweight jurisdictions, and the bold plans being set in motion to streamline processes and secure the next decade stemming from a £1.3m McKinsey review…
How does Jersey see itself in the current landscape and what are the threats?
Chief Minister Lyndon Farnham: Competitiveness is not a journey or a destination. It is a discipline, and it requires our collective attention, our continued collaboration and a shared commitment to progress.
Joe Moynihan, Jersey Finance CEO: We have a really good reputation, and there are lots of competitors trying to copy what we do, even to the extent of copy-pasting our legislation… We don’t have a divine right in this industry, we’ve worked hard for it, but we also have to work really hard to keep it.
Finance Minister Ian Gorst: Many jurisdictions, from Luxembourg to Singapore, are ploughing resources into their own future growth strategies. If we stand still, Jersey risks falling behind in the global race to future proof our economy… The Competitiveness Programme, therefore, has been designed to get the island back onto the front foot.
Aleksander Petrov, McKinsey Senior Partner: You don’t need me to lecture and say that volatility and uncertainty are at elevated levels – they’re very high. They’re higher than any time I have seen them. Let’s look at some of the facts and what’s causing that.
Let’s look at some of the facts and what is caused causing that. Firstly, the geopolitics and globalisation, or declobalisation… The relatively uninterrupted flow of goods, services, capital, is not going to be anywhere used to be, and there will be a lot more fragmentation, a lot more trade corridors, a lot more zones.
…Secondly, the cross border regulation is increasing. It’s not harmonising. It’s actually diverging. A countries actually are becoming more fierce and competitive, Spain, France, Italy. They want to encourage fundraising in their own jurisdictions. They’re putting in those regulations around that…
Then there’s AI – something we didn’t have on the radar screen 24 years ago – is coming. if you just think about fund management and administration.
.,..So where does that leave us? …How can Jersey use the fact that it’s more agile, it’s perceived to be more nimble and more easy to do business with, to compete… and adapt and change its legislation, its focus, its priorities, in order to capture business?
A key question is, if the funds from the UK decrease, where are the other corridors and where are the other flows Jersey can insert itself to be competitive? Sectors like Hong Kong, Singapore, in particular, Dubai… growing at double the rate. Why? Because they have made it their absolute priority to grow, they want to compete in the services and in the areas they choose with everything they can. And how can Jersey use the nimbleness, use the agility much more to win business there?
Joe Moynihan: Some of these jurisdictions have significantly more funds to invest in infrastructure, have still significantly more funds to invest in promotion. So, from our perspective, we cannot be complacent.
What are the specific risks posed by digital assets and technology?
Aleksander Petrov: 91% is the ratio of high net worths under 40 that own digital assets, any kind of stable currency, cryptocurrency, to organised real world assets… If I take a very unsophisticated assessment of Jersey on our frameworks, lagging, emerging, mature, leading on stable assets, you’re definitely lagging. And other centres are not. Singapore is not, for example. So that’s a challenge.
And what about the funds sector?
Challenge number one is that the funds are in a consolidation mode – larger funds are buying smaller funds, and they’re buying especially smaller funds independently domiciled in jurisdictions like Jersey. So the industry is consolidating.
This is a challenge. What is the opportunity? Well, we know fund products are getting more and more complex – Jersey is not scared of complexity. You were doing complex stuff 30, 40 years ago. So how can Jersey again establish itself as a very clear centre, a specialised centre that caters for these funds? And what does it take? That’s the question in my mind.
…We’re on an island. I cannot stop at making naval comparisons. Jersey, for me, is a pocket battleship version of the UK, and it should choose one or two or three ‘trades’, it cannot diversify way too much. It should carefully choose and then go and execute. And if you do that, I believe you do spend you have a bright future.
What are the initial plans to respond to competition and allow Jersey to meet those challenges?
Deputy Gorst: McKinsey’s work will be key to the success of this project – we might not, of course, like everything they have to say and we may not agree with some of it. The truth can at times be painful, but we will listen and we will act.
Over the coming months, Revenue Jersey will be working on how to deliver an exciting, enhanced onboarding experience for new-to-island businesses and FS professionals this will be focused on making the customer experience with Revenue Jersey quicker, simpler and more intuitive, but we will never take for granted the pivotal role of a simple, predictable tax regime with tax neutrality at its core.
Then finally an independent panel will produce a report for government on strategy and regulatory posture.
“I will publish an action plan in the spring of 2026 which will set a clear strategy for growing Jersey’s financial and professional services sector over the next decade and beyond, together, I am sure that we will move forward with renewed clarity of purpose, with enhanced cooperation between our institutions and agencies, and with greater confidence in the future success of our dynamic financial services sector.
Tom Le Feuvre, Director of External Relations: Work has already started to drive out unnecessary frictions that have developed over time in our tax compliance processes, and to work on developing an exciting, enhanced onboarding experience for businesses and for their advisors, the result should be improved customer service and reduced time spent on tax compliance for everyone, freeing up resources for use on higher value activity for the island.
Helen De La Cour, Director of Financial Services: It’s not just about creating a to-do list, it’s about getting things done.
There are some other properties as well – access to online forms, frequency of fund statistics and reporting, issuing updated guidance quickly and intermittent events – we’ve got 250ish items on our list… We’re also looking at whether there’s an opportunity to explore a KYC platform for the jurisdiction.
Jamie Warnock, JFSC Director of Policy: One of the big ones that came forward was to do with quarterly fund reporting. The suggestion from industry was that was very burdensome for them, but, actually, we can improve the quality of the data we get if we move to an annual reporting cycle that we can place a bit more reliance upon. So that’s what we’re going to move to.
Jill Britton, Director General JFSC: The Control of Borrowing Order puts a requirement for a registration if you want to raise money in the island. So, if you want to raise capital, raise money as a business, then you have to get this consent. But over the years, it has been used for lots and lots of different complex reasons. So rather than at times, change another legislation or introducing new legislation, things have just been added on to this order. You’ll hear it described as like an octopus – I would say it’s more like a spider’s web.
For a number of years, it has been on the list to look at, but other priorities have taken over, but we need to do that now.
There’s a consultation paper that sets out all of the different touch points of this law and how, with the passage of time, parts have already been addressed elsewhere, so we’ve got duplication in in the requirements, meaning some of the requirements are not needed anymore. So it was brought in at the time to sort of avoid people just coming to the island and raising money without any level of control. That’s ultimately what its purpose was. The whole regulatory framework has evolved so much since that piece of legislation that it’s absolutely time to do something.
Mike Jones, Managing Director, Mourant Consulting: We weren’t going to play it safe and perhaps come up with a handful of easy disciplines, we went with some really bold ones we thought would significantly move the dial, perhaps change the narrative on Jersey and what we’re doing here.
To what extent is talent retention – and talent loss to AI – a continuing challenge?
Joe Moynihan: We’re not unique as a jurisdiction. I mean, I’m Irish and but I know that there are significant challenges, say, for people in Dublin, being able to afford to live. The advantage that young people have there is that, you know, they can move 150 miles and commute, but they don’t want to do that, and it’s a real challenge, because what is happening? …What we’ve what we’ve got to try and do is ensure that people working in the industry see a career for themselves, and that might include spending some time off-island.
Certainly for a lot of our businesses now, they’re mostly jurisdictional, so people can leave, experience a different lifestyle, get a lot more experience, and then come back, potentially at a more senior level, with a much more contribution to their own organisation.
At the moment, there are a lot more kids leaving school and going straight in to do their professional qualifications on-island. The challenge then is to try and keep them, but if they do go, they go with good training.
…[With AI], the reality is that if you speak to most of our firms, they’re looking for talent… I think there’s plenty of opportunities for people to be employed the long-term. However, I feel that if you take my own sector, banking, going back 20 years ago, people talked about computerisation and how it was going to do away with bank jobs, because everything would be automated. Now, a lot of stuff has been automated, but that has provided capacity to do more business.
What’s the mood as Jersey looks to the future?
Treasury Minister Elaine Millar: We are determined to get this right, to set our financial services sector on a path to sustain growth over the next decade and beyond. It’s the right thing to do now, not just for ministers, not just for government, but for benefit for all islanders.
Helen De La Cour: The key thing for me that’s come out of this workstream was around the positivity and the energy that we’re feeling, and we’re all committed on this stage to delivering on this work for you, industry is equally committed, and we can’t do this without you.
Joe Moynihan: The challenge for us all is to try and build on that and keep the energy and momentum up. So, I commend the team in government and the support of industry to move that one forward.
KEY UPDATES
The update saw two key initiatives announced as part of Jersey’s Competitiveness Programme, aimed at enhancing the island’s appeal to global investors and improving regulatory efficiency.
Jersey Private Funds Regime changes
Effective from 6 August 2025, the updated JPF regime will:
- Remove the 50-investor limit
- Expand the definition of ‘professional investor’
- Allow listing of JPF interests with regulatory consent
- Introduce a 24-hour authorisation process for approved providers
These changes are designed to modernise Jersey’s fastest-growing fund category and ensure it remains attractive for private equity, venture capital and real asset strategies.
Streamlining processes
The Sound Business Practice Policy identifies sensitive activities that require greater scrutiny before regulatory consent. A full review is now underway to update this framework in a way that reduces business friction and delays by narrowing its scope and shifting towards a more flexible, risk-based approach. Officials say that this will be done without weakening Jersey’s commitment to financial crime prevention.
