Jersey's finance industry places great value on its expanding relationship with the nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and for this reason has cemented its presence in the region this year with the opening of Jersey Finance's new representative office in Abu Dhabi.

With a permanent presence in the region and further product innovations and enhancements to our legislative and regulatory regimes, we are committed to intermediaries and clients in the GCC region.

Jersey, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary as a modern international finance centre this year, has powerful endorsement as one of the best regulated jurisdictions in the international community from the OECD, IMF, FATF and UK Government amongst others. It also has a history and tradition of providing services to the Gulf market with many long standing business relationships between practitioners in the Gulf and Jersey. We are proud of those connections and keen to build on them.

The new Gulf office at Al Bateen, C6 Tower in Abu Dhabi, is headed by Sean Costello, Jersey Finance's Head of Business Development for the GCC and India, who has been a UAE resident for a number of years and who has wide ranging experience in the finance industry.

A centre of excellence

There are new products and updates to our legislation that we will be highlighting in our visits this year including:

  • The Foundations vehicle, which is being used as an alternative to the trust amongst wealth and estate planners
  • Changes to our company laws that bring even further flexibility
  • Further developments in our fund capabilities

We plan to continue highlighting Jersey's expertise and capabilities in managing international capital and its role as a jurisdiction for corporate clients in the GCC wishing to invest in the European markets.

Jersey is a well established centre of excellence in managing the wealth of high net worth individuals and a world leader in trusts. In particular Jersey has strong expertise in managing specialist structures popular in Islamic Finance, with a choice of practitioners familiar with Shari'a-compliant vehicles able to support this increasing sector of Gulf business.

It is fitting that in this anniversary year for Jersey's finance industry, we can celebrate a new milestone with the opening of a permanent office in the Gulf. Jersey's finance industry is both diverse and wide ranging and continues to evolve to meet the needs of financial institutions in the region, as well as international investors and their advisers.

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