Amendments to the Minimum Criteria for Licensing

In the spring of last year the Commission consulted on, amongst other matters: 

(i)             amendments to the minimum criteria for licensing in

• the Banking Supervision (Bailiwick of Guernsey) Law, 1994;
• the Regulation of Fiduciaries, Administration Businesses and Company Directors, etc (Bailiwick of Guernsey) Law, 2000;
• the Insurance Business (Bailiwick of Guernsey) Law, 2002; and
• the Insurance Managers and Insurance Intermediaries (Bailiwick of Guernsey) Law, 2002.

(ii)            the inclusion of new minimum criteria for licensing in the Protection of Investors (Bailiwick of Guernsey) Law, 1987– the final version of the minimum criteria is included in the Protection of Investors (Bailiwick of Guernsey) (Amendment) Law, 2007.  This amendment law has been agreed by the parliaments in Guernsey, Alderney and Sark and is awaiting Privy Council approval.

For the laws listed under paragraph (i) above, the Policy Council has made the amended criteria for licensing by way of regulations.  The regulations are available using the following links:

The Banking Supervision (Bailiwick of Guernsey) (Amendment) Regulations, 2008

The Regulation of Fiduciaries, Fiduciary Advertisements and Annual Returns (Amendment) Regulations, 2013

The Insurance Business (Bailiwick of Guernsey) (Amendment) Regulations, 2008

The Insurance Managers and Insurance Intermediaries (Bailiwick of Guernsey) (Amendment) Regulations, 2008

The major changes to the minimum criteria for licensing in the laws listed under paragraph (i) are:

• to remove the need for the Commission to consider an institution’s economic benefit to the Bailiwick, as this is no longer appropriate as a regulatory consideration;
• to widen the requirements for integrity and skill, and fitness and propriety, so that compliance with rules, guidance and instructions issued under legislation other than the regulatory laws can be taken into account;
• to extend the requirement for the business of an institution to be directed by at least two individuals so that those individuals must be sufficiently independent of one another;
• to permit the Commission to take account of any previous conduct and activities of a person when considering their fitness and propriety instead of conduct and activities relating only to business or financial matters;
• to include a specific provision on the Commission’s ability to reasonably require information so that compliance with the minimum criteria for licensing can be demonstrated.