Speaking to International Adviser, Gorst said when Jersey’s domestic pension legislation was modernised and simplified last year, it seemed sensible that part of the process should give non-residents the ability to potentially qualify under QROPS.
“What we’re going to do now is just start a process of conversation with HMRC so that they know that we’ve modernised our legislation.
“We know there’s been quite a lot of conversation in the UK about wanting to make sure people weren’t necessarily moving to avoid their obligations in the UK. We think that there might be an opportunity, but equally we don’t think that our new legislation could be described as aggressive.”
This might over time bring some international retail pension business to Jersey, he said, but he did not want to overplay the potential opportunity.
“We are conscious obviously of what happened a couple of years ago with regard to what the UK government said about the issues in Guernsey and elsewhere. But we’ve got the expertise, we’ve got people here that could run these products, so we would be attractive from that point of view. At this stage, it’s not that we’re cautious, but it’s just that we’re taking it step by step.”
Gorst also highlighted how it had undertaken a jurisdictional review in partnership with McKinsey, “because we don’t take for granted financial services in Jersey, we know that the world is changing, we want to make sure that we continue to position ourselves to capture business into the future.
“We know that business flows are moving around the world more than they ever have done before and capital needs to be able to do that and we facilitate that.”
Banking continued to be in a difficult place, he added, though some of the consolidation had benefitted Jersey.
In another part of the financial sector, some hedge funds had moved to Jersey though he accepted that it would never capture all that business of those wanting to remain in London for all sorts of reasons, “but if we can capture a headquarters or part of that business here then we think that’s positive for us”.
A former accountant, Gorst was recently re-elected as chief minister for a second term.
“We’ve got the stable government. We’ve got good legislation, we can act quickly to change our legislation if need be. So when we had that issue with the French potentially putting us on their blacklist, we were able to review legislation and make changes really pretty quickly.
“We’ve got a critical mass of internationally known firms, banks, lawyers, accountants. We’re close to London. We’ve got the tax neutral platform. We’ve got a government and an industry that’s not complacent.”
“I think there’s going to be a flight to quality, and I think we’re already starting to see that.”
