A prominent Channel Island bank executive has called on Guernsey and Jersey to work more closely together, citing the “increasingly competitive global arena for financial services”.
“The idea that we can sit here in the Channel Islands and wait for business has long perished, but equally, we should not be wasting resources fighting our neighbour just a few miles away for a share of that business,” Andreas Tautscher, chief country officer of Deutsche Bank in the Channel Islands, wrote in a column in Business Brief, a local monthly business journal.
“To expend energy trying to compete with each other does not make sense anymore.
“Instead we should be playing to the strengths of the Channel Islands as an integral whole.”
Deutsche Bank has a significant private banking operation in the Channel Islands, with offices in both Jersey and Guernsey. Switzerland-born Tautscher grew up on Guernsey and is based there, although a bank source said he spends about three days a week in Jersey.
Re-examination
Tautscher’s comments come amid growing reflection by many offshore financial centres of their future role in the world, and their relationships with the major countries with which they have been linked historically.
Former Jersey Bailiff Sir Philip Bailhache was quoted last month by the Jersey Evening Post as saying Jersey’s ministers should “prepare for independence from the UK as the constitutional relationship between the two jurisdictions worsens”.
According to the paper, Sir Philip criticised Jersey legislators for ignoring a two-year-old report recommending that research and preparation for independence be carried out.
