Money Matters

This article was originally published in Country Life Guernsey Edition, May 2007.

Guernsey's numbers are staggering. Banks based in the Island hold more than £92bn worth of deposits; the local fiduciary sector has more than £200bn of assets in trust; the value of investment funds under management and administration is in excess of £130bn; and the gross assets of Guernsey’s international insurance industry is nearly £15bn. Not bad for a 24 square mile Island with a population of 60,000.

Guernsey’s development into the buoyant international finance centre that it is today has its roots in local hero Admiral Lord James de Sausmarez’s – he was with Nelson at Trafalgar – establishment of the Island’s first bank in 1822, which was at about the same time as paddle steamers brought the English gentry across the Channel for holidays of sun, sand and sea. Nowadays links to the UK come in the form of a myriad of air routes where tourists rub shoulders with an increasing influx of business