Strictly Confidential….But Not Secret

Originally published in the STEP Journal, April 2009

Peter Niven, Chief Executive of Guernsey Finance, on Guernsey's policy regarding confidentiality and secrecy.

One of the things I remember vividly about my first day at work was the "talking to" I had from my new branch manager on the need for the utmost confidentiality when it came to customer information – that was in Lloyds Bank back in 1975. And how right he was to lecture me on the need to ensure customer confidentiality. But of course what he was telling me was nothing new.

Confidentiality is not a recent phenomenon.

Banking has traded on that concept since the Joint Stock Banks were born out of the coffee houses of the City of London and even before that in the banking houses of Renaissance Italy.