A senior Isle of Man-based life company executive, who did not wish to be named, said the decision was made without consulting anyone and there may have been the opportunity to raise the £250,000 required outside of Government for the S&P rating to continue.
But speaking to International Adviser, Bell said that the Treasury had decided to retain just one ratings agency, Moody’s, with “no intention to back away from that”.
“We are tightenting our belts right across government in the form of trying to stamp out unnecessary expense,” he said, adding that no one from the business community on the island had contacted him with concerns about the ending of the S&P rating.
He also said that the Isle of Man was the first of the three crown dependency islands to have the ratings, to enable it to deal with bank borrowing.
In February, S&P cut the Isle of Man’s credit rating from AA+ to AA citing concerns that the international crackdown on offshore tax havens might impact on the island’s financial services industry.
Last week, Jersey’s only ratings agency S&P affirmed a AA+ credit rating, first assigned in November 2013 in order that the Jersey States was able to proceed with the borrowing proposed in the Island’s 2014 Budget for £250m investment in housing over the next 10 years.
A spokesman for Guernsey Finance said that because Guernsey has never borrowed money externally, it does not have a credit rating and does not pay for a ratings agency, unlike Jersey and the Isle of Man.
