Staying ahead - how can Guernsey blend Fin and Tech?

appeared in DigiHub - September 2015

Nick Vermeulen, Partner, PwC Channel Islands, gives his personal view of the firm's insight into fintech for Guernsey

How did the consultation process go?

I was really encouraged that our consultation process was met with a great deal of interest and enthusiasm. In the end, we met with well over 70 local and global representatives of industry, across Financial Services, Technology and existing FinTech players. In particular, it was really positive to find many local businesses and entrepreneurs who are already actively involved both on and off the island in the FinTech space.

What do you think is the most significant game changer?

There is a real opportunity to establish Guernsey as a globally recognised 'trusted location' for data. With the rapid growth of digital products and services and the huge amount of data that is now being generated, such as financial, health, driving and many other kinds of sensitive data, individuals and businesses are increasingly aware that this data needs to be managed and protected.

As a leading international financial services centre with an established reputation for managing wealth, Guernsey is ideally placed to establish a world-leading regulatory framework to create a secure and trusted environment for data storage. This will also provide wide-reaching benefits to local industry, not just those within the financial services space. The challenge will be providing an environment conducive to growth, which also ensures strong data privacy for individuals and clear compliance standards for business.

The other key trend is that the quality of a business’s online and mobile offerings is becoming as important a differentiator as cost or return-on-investment for customers of financial institutions. In order to remain globally competitive, local firms will need to be able to adapt to the demands of an increasingly tech-savvy marketplace. This will be especially important for trust and private wealth businesses looking to attract, engage and retain the next generation of clients.

How should local business be responding to the findings?

Local businesses need to create the right environment for innovation from within, and management need to embrace new and potentially disruptive ideas and technologies. Many FinTech solutions relate to the improvement of back end systems and processes, and there could be significant benefits if competing businesses actually work together and develop industry shared solutions for certain processes.

Most importantly, in order to stay ahead of the curve, businesses need to keep abreast of current and future developments in the FinTech and Technology spaces and have an understanding of how these could potentially impact both their business and their clients’ needs further down the line.

What are the next steps?

The States and Industry need to work together to drive the strategy forward and there needs to be collaborative effort to implement some of the actions noted in the report and to ensure that the strategy remains forward-looking and relevant.

The States, Locate Guernsey and the Digital Greenhouse have a hugely important role to play in positioning Guernsey as a genuinely world-class innovation hub in order to attract new business to the Island.

Contact us

Nick Vermeulen

Territory Senior Partner, PwC Channel Islands

Tel: +44 7781 111526

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