Guernsey important ally, London finance executive says

Thursday 25 January 2018

Miles Celic, the Chief Executive of TheCityUK, gave the keynote speech at the Guernsey Finance annual update yesterday.

Mr Celic spoke about how Guernsey and London furthering their links would benefit both parties, and also how the UK could learn from Guernsey.

He was speaking along with Guernsey Finance Chief Executive Dominic Wheatley, Dr Andy Sloan, Barnaby Molloy, James Falla, Kaye Clouston, Wendy Weng and Guernsey Finance Chairman Deputy Lyndon Trott at the annual review.

Above: Miles Celic.

"Guernsey Finance are very important members of TheCityUK, we can learn a lot from each other as industry partners. We work with a broad range of finance centres from around Britain, and it is clear Guernsey is a key one of those," Mr Celic said.

"I think Guernsey is in an ideal position coming into Brexit because it has experience as a third party country outside of the European Union, and still working very closely with them. Because of that, we can learn a lot from that experience, and as London and the island, a lot can be achieved from working together."

Mr Wheatley also spoke about some of Guernsey Finance's aims for the year, and his colleague Dr Sloan outlined the businesses' strategy development plans.

Deputy Trott's talk was about Brexit and how it might affect the island's industry, an area that Mr Celic also touched on.

"We were very pleased with the UK's progress in the Brexit negotiations toward the end of last year, but many of the important issues are still yet to come up. We expect  now that we are moving onto phase two that a lot of the commercial and economic issues will be raised, and that will have an impact on our industry. It is down to us to keep monitoring the progress and see what happens."

The update was attended by around 500 representatives from the island's industry, filling St James.

Guernsey Finance are currently looking to employ a permanent London-based representative, in moves to strengthen its ties to the city.