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This year’s Manx State of the Nation conference, organised by the Alliance of Isle of Man Compliance Professionals and sponsored by PwC Isle of Man on 6 March, provided a jam-packed agenda with a range of experts reflecting on critical risk and regulatory topics and sharing useful insights for businesses across sectors on the island.
In a rapidly changing business and regulatory environment and with the island’s MONEYVAL visit fast-approaching, businesses are navigating a complex landscape while striving to build and maintain trust with stakeholders.
Here are some of my key takeaways:
- Data quality focus - Regulators are developing their approach to data which means businesses need to focus on data quality more than ever.
- Gaming industry scrutiny - Gaming industry providers are under intense scrutiny following changes to the criminal landscape and the increasing risk of entities and structures being established to conduct or participate in criminal activity.
- Geopolitical uncertainty - Growing geopolitical uncertainty means businesses need to take Third-Party Risk Management more seriously and conduct third party checks thoroughly to ensure risks to their business and reputation are mitigated effectively.
- AI and the workforce -
- When it comes to AI and its impact on the workforce, it’s not all doom and gloom – in fact, according to PwC research, AI is better embraced as a tool that co-exists alongside rather than replacing jobs.
- AI is a balance though and businesses need to focus on actively upskilling their workforce to prevent skills losses in the face of AI’s broad capabilities.
Let’s delve deeper into these updates.
Opening address
Chief Minister Hon Alfred Cannan MHK opened the conference with an address sharing an update on the administration’s progress to date and commenting on the recent Isle of Man Budget, delivered on 17 February 2026.
The rising cost of quality data
Isle of Man Information Commissioner, Alexandra Delaney-Bhattacharya, delivered an update on her team’s progress since the last conference, emphasising the critical need for robust, trustworthy and reliable business data in today’s data-driven global economy. This is reiterated through her department’s consultation on changes to the Data Protection registration fee – moving away from the flat £70 annual model to tiered fees similar to what is seen in the UK. While this will likely see a further increase in fees for most businesses, the drive to be self-sustainable is understandable in the context of needing to manage government expenditure.
Alexandra also acknowledged several areas of transformation in the ICO in the last 12 months, and shared results from their 2025 compliance survey which showed that larger organisations have higher levels of confidence in data protection practices.
Gaming risk moves from players to providers
Historically, the Gambling Supervision Commission’s (GSC) focus has been on B2C or player criminal activity. Times are changing though with Mark Rutherford, Chief Executive Officer, outlining a significant shift in primary risk for the island’s gaming industry landscape to B2B or provider criminal activity.
The Commission is increasingly concerned about criminal ownership of gambling businesses and software suppliers. While technology advancements like AI, deepfakes and virtual assets add sophistication to this type of criminal activity, the fundamental money laundering tactics – Placement, Layering and Integration – remain unchanged. This is set against the backdrop of an increasingly challenging and complex environment, with the GSC’s 2025 risk ratings identifying the gambling sector overall as medium-high risk for money laundering.
David Quinn, General Supervision Inspector, explained that the GSC’s role is not to de-risk gaming but provide a regulatory framework enabling operations to manage their risks.
When questioned about MONEYVAL’s potential view on the rising number of license surrenders, the GSC observed that this trend typically precedes MONEYVAL visits, with license holders dropping 30% before the last inspection.
Know your third parties
Joanna Williams, Head of Ethics and Compliance at Tullow Oil, shared insights on Third-Party Risk Management (TPRM), a topic that’s crucial given today’s geopolitical landscape. Joanna’s engaging style encouraged the audience to think deeply as she guided us through the essentials of TPRM, highlighting its pitfalls and key considerations.
The main takeaway for me was her focus on balancing control processes with outcomes – cautioning against TPRM becoming a tick-box exercise driven by questionnaires rather than a value-add approach identifying and safeguarding against real third-party risks. This balance must be struck when adding all controls, not just TPRM.
Augmentation of workforce skills in the AI age
PwC UK’s Nabil Taleb, a London-based economist, focused on the impact of emerging technologies on the labour market. He shared insights from PwC’s 2025 Global AI Jobs Barometer, with a UK focus and refreshing perspective: while AI will impact job prospects, it can increase people’s value rather than reduce it.
Nabil explained the concepts of augmentation versus automation – augmentation enhances human tasks without replacing them, while automation fully replaces human roles – with augmentation jobs becoming increasingly valuable. The report suggests that AI should be seen as a growth strategy, not only as an efficiency strategy, and as a tool to help workers create more value. The situation is far more nuanced and by embracing AI’s augmentation potential, businesses can position themselves favourably as advancing with technology and transforming how they work, rather than simply approaching it as something that only replaces jobs.
Following on the AI conversation was Tim Tyler, Vice President at the International Compliance Association, who gave more of a philosophical viewpoint on AI and debated whether it was a problem solver or creator. He pointed out the risk of declining human skills as AI skills increase the risk of cognitive decline and surrender within the workforce. While AI’s potential is vast, so is the risk of mismanagement. Leaders must be mindful of the gap between AI’s capabilities and their implementation of it in the workplace.
The evolving fraud and human rights environment
Becky Holmes, author of 'Keanu Reeves Is Not In Love With You' and international speaker, presented an engaging discussion around her insights since starting a Twitter/X account during lockdown to spotlight romance scammers.
She’s connected with victims who previously felt unable to speak out and has also observed the evolution of fraud tactics used by scammers; shifting from broad, low-sophistication schemes to focused, technologically advanced operations like phishing (email scams) or smishing (text scams).
Becky advocated for changing fraud-related language – phrases like “fell for”, “lost” and “too good to be true” unfairly shift blame onto victims rather than the criminals perpetrating the scams.
MONEYVAL updates
The Financial Services Authority wrapped up the day with updates on progress from Bettina Roth, Chief Executive Officer, confirming that the technical package is submitted and focus now shifts to the effectiveness submission.
The messaging is clear: a collaborative approach is essential to safeguard the island’s future, with everyone playing a role. Ashley Whyte, Head of AML/CFT Supervision Division, followed by announcing the release of the completed National Risk Assessments (NRA) – with 10 NRAs covering 20 sectors. In short, while risk levels remain steady, threats have grown. Having read several documents so far, they appear comprehensive and beneficial.
Looking ahead
This year’s Manx State of the Nation conference reinforced a clear message to me: the regulatory environment on the island is continuing to change rapidly, and businesses who act proactively will be best placed to navigate what’s ahead. Whether it’s investing in better data quality, strengthening third-party risk management or thoughtfully combining AI into your workforce strategy, the consistent theme is readiness. Businesses embracing a forward-thinking approach and effectively implementing these themes will bring more value to their business models.
We’re here to help you
If any of the topics we've discussed connect with the challenges you're facing, our Advisory team is ready to explore how we can help you move forward.
