New International Standards For Regulating Trust Company Business

The Group of International Finance Centre Supervisors (“GIFCS”) has today launched a new benchmark for the regulation of Trust and Corporate Service Providers (“TCSPs”).

Guernsey has been a champion of this new approach which has seen the GIFCS working group which developed the new standard being chaired by the Commission’s General Counsel, Philip Nicol-Gent.

Mr Nicol-Gent said “This is an extremely important area and considerable effort has been made by everyone involved to develop a proportionate and meaningful standard to which all jurisdictions can work towards. By adopting a common standard, jurisdictions will be able to more effectively demonstrate that their trusts and companies are being used for proper purposes. It will also aid the international fight against terrorist financing and money laundering”.

Guernsey’s TCSP sector already operates to high standards and over the next twelve months the Commission will undertake an analysis of the regulatory regime to determine whether small adjustments may be required in order to underpin the new standard.  Any proposed changes will then be incorporated into the Commission’s work on revisions to legislation which it is currently taking forward on a collaborative basis with both government and industry.

GIFCS has issued a media statement which can be viewed here.  In addition, the new Standard can be viewed here and a list of GIFCS members can also be found on the GIFCS website at www.groupgifcs.org