The British Virgin Islands (BVI) has reversed recent trends by becoming the only offshore financial centre to have its rating boosted in the latest Global Financial Centres Index. The improvement comes against a backdrop of decline among all other offshore jurisdictions.
The ninth edition of the GFCI (GFCI 9) revealed that the BVI has improved its GFTI rating by two points, securing 40th place in the rankings outright, having previously shared the spot with Brussels.
BVI’s achievement was made all the more remarkable by the fact that every other offshore centre fell in both the ratings and ranking, continuing a trend that began with the onslaught of the global financial crisis in 2008.
Sheri Ortiz, Executive Director of the BVI International Financial Centre believes the BVI’s boost in the latest edition of the GFCI is testament to the centre’s ongoing commitment to regulation, transparency and continued growth in its financial services offering.
Meanwhile, The Bahamas has slipped another three places to 67th on the GFCI.
The Nassau Guardian reported that the jurisdiction’s slip in ranking came along with a fall in its rating, from 529 six months ago to 517, behind all other offshore centres on the list.
The news comes as The Bahamas hosts financial training institutes from around the world during the 9th World Conference of Banking Institutes. Ironically, their role impacts greatly on the single most important determinant of jurisdictional competitiveness — the availability of skilled personnel.
“The Bahamas is a leading financial center, but it needs to keep working at it. You can’t be complacent. London had a slippage too, but in order to get going you need a skill base,” Simon Culhane, chief executive of the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment told Guardian Business.
“In the wealth management market [the availability of skilled personnel] is very important, because people who have the money will look carefully to make sure the advice is top quality. So they won’t want the minimum standards, they want people who have got much more than the minimum,” Culhane said.
A retired banking executive, Al Jarrett, said that immigration policies are also contributing to a less-skilled labour force.
“About 12 years ago Bahamians had the opportunity to go outside The Bahamas and the Caribbean for training on a global level,” Jarrett said. He added that he had opportunities to work in New York, Canada and other jurisdictions that prepared him to be an international banker. Now, with the movement of mind and management of several leading Canadian banks out of The Bahamas to Caribbean centres such as Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados, he said Bahamians are being precluded from the critical global exposure.
