En Voyage_Issue#11_Flickbook
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Business<br />
A ‘CONNECTED<br />
GUERNSEY’ IS<br />
WHAT WE NEED<br />
Carey Olsen partner<br />
Tom Carey shares his<br />
thoughts on how the<br />
Guernsey finance industry<br />
is taking the next step.<br />
Guernsey first emerged as a centre<br />
of trade in the late 17th century<br />
when St Peter Port became an entrepôt for goods<br />
being shipped to and from the continent and Britain.<br />
Trade has remained an important pillar of the island’s<br />
economy ever since, but today we rely on trade in the<br />
digital sense, rather than a maritime one. This is nowhere<br />
more evident than in our financial services sector.<br />
However, there is no guarantee that this will<br />
remain the case forever. Guernsey, as other financial<br />
hubs will have to, has to evolve to ensure it retains<br />
a modern finance environment compatible with<br />
an increasingly digitised and complex world.<br />
<strong>En</strong>couragingly, Guernsey is perfectly placed<br />
to meet this challenge. Thanks to geographical<br />
fortune, Guernsey’s position in the <strong>En</strong>glish Channel<br />
puts it at the heart of subsea fibre-optic cables<br />
which link data and digital traffic between the UK,<br />
Europe, the Americas, the Middle East and Africa.<br />
The scale, resilience and efficiency of these stateof-the-art<br />
connections have allowed the financial<br />
services industry to flourish and allow it to transact<br />
business speedily and securely worldwide. It makes<br />
Guernsey one of the most digitally connected<br />
places in the world and has allowed eGaming to<br />
become a major success story for the island as<br />
internet gambling and gaming businesses choose<br />
to locate their data servers or indeed their offices<br />
in Guernsey. It is also why the island could soon be<br />
chosen as a test bed for new 5G mobile technology.<br />
Reassuringly, there is a demonstrable enthusiasm<br />
amongst local government, industry and the<br />
telecommunication providers to enhance<br />
Guernsey’s digital infrastructure even further and<br />
to capitalise on these opportunities. The digital and<br />
telecommunications strategies for the island show<br />
that Guernsey is not resting on its laurels in this<br />
regard. The promise of fibre links to business districts<br />
and even faster broadband connections should be<br />
music to the ears of those in the finance industry.<br />
GLOBAL FIRSTS<br />
After all, Guernsey has already gone a long way<br />
in positioning itself as a go-to jurisdiction for digital<br />
innovation in financial services; so needs a digital<br />
infrastructure that matches what it is preaching and<br />
delivering to clients.<br />
Take blockchain, a type of distributed ledger or<br />
decentralised database of digital transactions, as an<br />
example. Our lawyers at Carey Olsen advised Northern<br />
Trust on the launch of the first commercial deployment<br />
of blockchain for the private equity market in 2017<br />
for a Guernsey-based investment fund managed by<br />
Unigestion. Guernsey was also home to the first global<br />
use of blockchain technology in the issuing of notes in<br />
the insurance-linked securities sector.<br />
Make no mistake, blockchain is a game-changer for<br />
financial services. Guernsey has been at the forefront of<br />
its emergence into the mainstream, but we would not<br />
want our involvement to end there. The island’s finance<br />
industry has an appetite to do more of this type of work<br />
and to be part of an even broader fintech revolution that<br />
goes beyond just blockchain. Great on-island events like<br />
Finvention underline the enthusiasm.<br />
In fact, what helps Guernsey is that we already<br />
have in place a fantastic Electronic Transactions<br />
Law. Introduced in 2000, the law was ahead of its<br />
time and permits the Government to be fleet of<br />
foot in introducing specific legislation to deal with<br />
smart contracts and bot-to-bot transactions.<br />
Similarly, Guernsey is one of only a select number<br />
of non-EU jurisdictions – 12 at the time of writing –<br />
to be compliant with the General Data Protection<br />
Regulation (GDPR). The introduction of the Data<br />
Protection (Bailiwick of Guernsey) Law, 2017 on the<br />
same day that GDPR came into force across Europe,<br />
underlines our commitment to remaining at the<br />
forefront of international standards safeguarding<br />
transmissions of data in a digital setting.<br />
Maintaining these standards is crucial for<br />
Guernsey going forward, as will be keeping<br />
pace with digital technology and providing the<br />
required infrastructure to enable industries, like<br />
our finance sector, to flourish while using it.<br />
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