Lights, camera, action

The next G20 Leaders' Summit to be held in St Petersburg next month should attract mass media coverage - not just for what is on the agenda but for the 'chemistry' between the leaders. Let's not forget that Barack Obama, the US president, has already cancelled a private meeting with summit host Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, as a result of Russia granting temporary asylum to former American CIA technical worker Edward Snowden.

These issues are bound to dominate column inches about the event. But for us in Guernsey, the focus will be on the attention given to international finance centres (IFCs).

Our experience of these meetings is that they often lead to an increased scrutiny on IFCs and the role they play in the fortunes of the global economy. 'Offshore' centres are often held culpable for the ills and underperformance of the world's powerful economies. The G8 meeting in Northern Ireland in June 2013 was no different. David Cameron, the UK prime minister, made tackling tax evasion and encouraging transparency his main priorities while G8 leaders pointed the finger of blame once again at 'offshore' financial centres.

Leaders then signed a document that set out the "core principles that are fundamental to the transparency of ownership and control of companies and legal arrangements". Its aim is to ensure that companies and trusts obtain and hold information on their beneficial ownership. It calls for establishing central registries containing these details, and directs all jurisdictions to produce a 'national action plan' and publish updates on progress.

What is interesting about countries signing up to publish national action plans on beneficial ownership is that Guernsey has had equivalent standards in place since 2000. Indeed, deputy Peter Harwood, Guernsey's chief minister, made that point at an 'open for growth' meeting in London days before June's G8 Summit.

Secret matter

Nevertheless, Guernsey has agreed to publish an action plan of its own on beneficial ownership. As our chief minister points out, "Guernsey has an obligation to maintain its position among those jurisdictions who show leadership on the recording of details on beneficial ownership", and for the reason that an action plan "will further strengthen the procedures we already have in place to prevent the misuse of companies and legal arrangements in Guernsey".

The constant rhetoric about the 'secrecy' of IFCs means some choose to ignore Guernsey's strong track record in terms of tax transparency, information exchange and beneficial ownership - the latter demonstrated by Guernsey being one of the few jurisdictions in the world, not including all G8 members, to regulate our trust and corporate service providers. We are often unfairly grouped with other financial centres that are not as transparent as ourselves. In reality, we want to see a level playing field across the board.

In 2011, the International Monetary Fund reported Guernsey as being compliant or largely compliant with 47 out of 49 of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommendations on anti-money laundering (AML) and countering the financing of terrorism (CFT). Before this, we were among the first set of jurisdictions to be placed on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development whitelist in 2009 and subsequent Global Forum reports have continued to recognise the island as within the top tier of jurisdictions meeting international tax standards and thereby helping to protect global stability. We have demonstrated this by signing 44 tax information exchange agreements and 19 double taxation arrangements. We want to see other IFCs follow suit.

This type of message may not be the one that is broadcast in St Petersburg when the world leaders sit down to discuss 'international financial architecture reform'. But it is what we will continue to respond with when our financial services industry comes under attack. At the very least, meetings of the G8 and the G20 often give us a platform to do so.

Fiona Le Poidevin is the chief executive of Guernsey Finance

She writes a regular blog about Guernsey for Private Client Adviser

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