PRACTICAL changes to the operation of Jersey’s Financial Intelligence Unit should help address recommendations likely in the forthcoming Moneyval report, Assistant Chief Minister with responsibility for finance Elaine Millar has told the JEP.
Although ministers have yet to receive the first draft of the report – a key evaluation of Jersey’s finance industry – which is expected on a confidential basis next month, Deputy Millar said the government was “confident but not complacent” about meeting international standards.
The final text of the report will become public next summer.
A team of six assessors and a supporting secretariat from Moneyval – a European body that assesses whether jurisdictions are doing enough to combat money-laundering and terrorist funding – spent two weeks in the Island in September, poring over documents and questioning individuals to find out if Jersey has the right tools to fight financial crime and how effectively the Island is using them.
One area where work has already taken place, addressing standards set by the Financial Action Task Force, concerns the status of the Jersey Financial Intelligence Unit, previously part of the States of Jersey Police.
Following a law change, it became operationally independent in July this year but still retains links with the police.
Deputy Millar said: “We already have an idea of where there is work to be done. Part of that is establishment of the Financial Intelligence Unit as an independent body and not a department of SOJP.
“They are still at police headquarters but gradually they will transition away from that to being fully freestanding. They will have their own systems and they will receive more intelligence and be able to analyse it more thoroughly and share it elsewhere. They will turn into more of a national intelligence agency,” she explained.
At a recent industry briefing, Deputy Millar – who assumed responsibility for the financial-services sector earlier this year – told industry members that industry regulation would continue to be at the forefront of the government’s work, something she said was especially important given the recent Moneyval evaluation.
“The prosperity of our financial services industry is predicated on Jersey meeting global compliance standards, and as such, Jersey will continue to work alongside other jurisdictions that maintain these high standards,” she told her audience.
In her first such address, the assistant minister – who herself worked in the finance industry for some 25 years – affirmed the government’s commitment to finance as the employer of a fifth of the Island’s workforce and the generator of a third of the value of its goods and services.
“All Islanders benefit from public services, greater connectivity and wider economic prosperity facilitated by the financial services sector.
“And as well as our local economy, the industry’s contribution globally is significant.
“Jersey enables the movement of capital around the world, generating employment, tax revenue and economic growth across many jurisdictions. Those economic flows mean that we are able to play a part in driving positive change towards a more environmentally and socially sustainable global economy,” she said.
In a wide-ranging address, Deputy Millar referred to subjects including digitisation, consultation on the introduction of a consumer credit regime, the law change that will enable information held by the government to be supplied to credit reference agencies – addressing problems some Islanders have encountered obtaining credit cards – and the possibility of changes to the Trusts Law and Companies Law to ensure that the legislative framework was “competitive and appropriate for modern requirements”, something she acknowledged the industry had been seeking for some time.
She also referred to the forthcoming consultation on sustainable finance – which the government hopes to begin before the end of the year – aimed at creating the environment that will allow the industry to introduce new sustainable finance products.
