Sign New Jersey Banking Work Order Myself

Industry sign banking new jersey work order myself

I okay well Jeff Cook join Jersey finance as cheeky chief executive in January 2007 previously he was head of wealth management for hsbc bank based in london in addition to speaking at jersey finance hosted events jeff is a regular speaker and contributor to conferences and seminars around the world and speeches in media such as the Financial Times The Economist BBC Radio 4 BBC World Service and Bloomberg TV Helen Collinson is economic justice campaign manager a role she's been in for three years at Christian Aid she's based in Devon but works in London we thank you helen for making the trip to be with us here today father james mccauley is assistant priest based absent Thomas's Roman Catholic Church in San Helier but has a pastoral remit for the entire island he's a chartered accountants and having practiced in amongst other places the US and the City of London left the finance industry for seminary and was ordained in 2010 and Richard siberry was the civil servant responsible for the creation of the jersey financial services commission in 1998 and became its first director general prior to that he served the island for many years as director of the finance service Financial Services Department of the States of Jersey where it was responsible for amongst other things the bringing into being of jerseys trusts and companies laws and finally Johnny Scots who's a regular contributor to business connectors very kindly agreed to facilitate our discussion today so I'll hand over to you Johnny thank you thank you Paul we would like us to be as free-flowing a discussion as possible and keep your contributions very brief and feel free to interject as and when you would like to we'd love to start with you Helen thank you for coming over as we all know it's hard to give a accurate description of Jersey without mentioning its financial services and that's been something that's on the radar of Christian Aid and other NGOs there's been obviously a lot of talk in the press in recent months about some major criticisms that they have well you'll hear we'd like it if you could start by articulating what you think the main concerns are of Christian Aid and of other NGOs about International Finance centers like Jersey and perhaps you would also give us an illustration that would help guide our discussion here where the money is going and where the money is going and why that's of concern to Christian Aid thanks very much Johnny I'm very pleased to be here and first of all I'd like to say that I come in peace what some people might think about Christopher's to christianize position on all this I am NOT a Norris Christian Aid aunty Jersey if we are anti anything it is anti poverty and that's my starting point for being here we christian aid works at about 50 countries around the world often with some of the poorest communities in the poorest countries if you'd like to hear more about our work in one of those poorest communities we have an evening meeting in georgetown methodist church tonight at seven-thirty where we'd be talking about the inspiring work we're doing to empower some very very poor communities in sierra leone over the years christian aid supporters through the churches in the UK Ireland and in the Channel Islands have raised millions of pounds over the years to change the lives of some of the poorest and most marginalized people in the world and we anybody has been involved in that can pat themselves on the back meanwhile we have some partners who have supported that work along the way including Jersey overseas Aid Commission and I have to say that Jersey oversees a commission continues to play a crucial role in our humanitarian work often funding emergencies that are hard to fund from other sources because they are low profile only a few weeks ago you may have heard that there's a big refugee camp on the Thai Burmese border for Burmese refugees who fled the regime there half of it burnt down recently and Jersey Oh Sees a commission stepped in and gave us some emergency food aid to the people who lost everything likewise in Colombia last year the Jays Jersey oversees a commission supported the work of relation to floods there so that's all fantastic work and we really appreciate the support that we have from Jersey overseas aid Commission after 60 years however I think everyone in this room can agree that unfortunately there is still a lot of poverty in the world and that's why I'm here because as well as doing this excellent work on the ground it's clear that we've got to do something more to end poverty our slogan at the moment is poverty over and that's why as well as doing continuing to do the work on the ground in poor communities we also feel that we have to address the root causes of poverty what are the systemic structural issues in the global economic system that might be sustaining poverty and inequality instantly which is actually getting worse in the world and that's what got us into tax and that's that what that's what continues to motivate this work and when we looked at what is sustaining poverty I mean it's a simple issue isn't it developing countries just don't have enough money to lift their citizens out of poverty to pay for education hospitals you name it to go back to Sierra Leone some of you may have seen the coverage through sport relief recently when John Bishop went to the only Children's Hospital in the whole of Sierra Leone now in our societies its taxation which pays for things like hospitals yeah so when we looked at why the tax base in developing countries were so low unfortunately we could see that tax dodging and I'm using the word dodging because some of what goes on is frankly illegal and is tax evasion and some is a bit of a gray area which is avoidance but you know arguably even if it's legally okay maybe morally isn't so when I say dodging I'm using that word reason that that dodging by individuals but also by companies appeared to be one of the reasons why developing countries could not collect a reasonable amount of Taxation their populations in most cases are very poor they are not going to be able to rely on their citizens at the moment at least until the economies develop to raise very much money so actually in many if I made you know in a couple more minutes could you just explain why international finance centers of a direct impact on liberal okay well I mean to some extent that's an open question because our main issue is about the lack of transparency so when I say we think this is going on you know it's difficult to know the extent of the problem but it would appear from the evidence that we have that some companies and individuals are using offshore financial centres to shift profits from the countries where they are having the akan economic activity and generating wealth in order to not pay so much tax in those in those countries and I would argue that unfortunately in many cases it is the the secrecy not not just low tax rates but the secrecy in offshore financial centres which enables that profit shifting to go on okay and in an article in October 2011 the Tax Justice Network cooks Jersey very near the bottom of the list when it came to secrecy and international financial centers and Jeff I've got you here quoted as saying that in your 30-year career you've never discovered a jurisdiction that has such a commitment to truth transparency and integrity as Jersey if those are the two competing sides of the arguments how do you answer some appellants accusation well I think Christian atheist sorry beg if I one question could i first came up with these accusations I think you had to call them that really we were clearly very concerned so I looked into their reports and when you actually look at the evidence they're putting forward to substantiate this view you find it's actually generated by a very small number of people and their principally Alex cobham who was their tax policy advisors now is save the children and the Tax Justice Network and the TAS de justice network is is a special interest lobbying organization it's not an academic research house with any credibility and I think I'd go on to demonstrate why I've formed that view so what I do when I first became aware of these contentions was I went to international tax experts and I thought well if I go to a big for accountancy firm then clearly people will just say well they're the people advise you anyway so there they have a vested interest in up looking at this empirically so I anticipated that so I actually went to bournemouth university and oxford university and in oxford university there is the center for business taxation which is run by some of the world's leading tax academics and the reason I went to Bournemouth is it's the only University the United Kingdom that teaches a pure tax degree and the lecturer teaching that is a qualified lawyer qualified accountant and has worked international tanks and I actually asked them independently of us to look at these reports because I was concerned about these allegations or accusations and I said can you tell me empirically is that it is this information reliable because i worked in financial services 30 years have been in jersey for 30 years and I never ever saw this kind of activity I don't recognize it as being connected with Jersey and what those experts did they looked at those reports for me and they came up with some interesting observations and if I can just share some with you really if you would oh these are easy errors actually near Christian Aid research that the first was that single recorded transaction for the sale of 66 million fridge freezers from China to Spain in 2011 was effective for less than a euro piece that's clearly a massive statistical overstatement and error they also use a methodology that assumes that that the most valuable 25% of goods and the cheapest 25% must be subject to transfer mispricing that is it's been artificially inflated or depress that's just an assumption with no evidence sitting behind you but perhaps the most staggering a floor I think in the research is it includes countries like China so that we talk about developing countries and hundred and sixty billion and five thousand children dying as often connected in people people's minds to Africa the reality is that Chinese included in these figures if you extract John I don't think China it has a problem with a forwarding and effective tax administration's a second most powerful and rich economy in the world if you extract Chinese figures from these figures the transfer mispricing figure drops from 160 billion dollars to seven billion dollars so when I actually challenged a Alex problem on the basis of the research with this evidence and Alex was not at fault for changing direction I believe the reason for that is this has been an effective revenue raising campaign for Christian Aid and they seem unwilling to face up to the facts so whether transfer mispricing goes on the scale there Clem it does i think is highly unlikely the collective corporation tax paid by corporates in developing countries and middle-income countries is about fifty billion dollars to go up to the kind of figure they're suggesting should be collected would mean a quadrupling of corporate tax in these countries which would mean that most on many multinationals would find it unacknowledged i would simply pull out and my my belief in terms of the reasons for a developing countries continuing to struggle to address poverty is that they lack the fundamentals you need for credible inward investment and acclimate development and that is their subject to corruption subjective Wars they're subject to inefficient domestic tax collection systems and therefore can't pull themselves up out of this problem well that's that can I just take up when very interesting observation then the suggestion that it is not necessarily the collection of tax globally that is the problem it is that the money if whenever to reach those countries would be in efficiently administered and do you not think that that's a greater problem than the collection of tax in the first place I won't deny that corruption is a huge problem but there is evidence out there that actually taxation can make a very positive contribution to governments and democracy you know remember the old phrase no representation without no taxation without representation rather you know even in the development of our own societies there's always been a strong linkage between the development of democracy and the payment of taxation so that's a key point that we make that if you improve the tax base in these countries you will reduce corruption and there is there is hard evidence of that I wonder if I could come in here in the spirit of the hit the idea of sort of people chipping in from here and there to say that since since I've been retired I've had more time to to think about many of these issues and and it does seem to me that there is a fundamental difficulty in in our world system this is very radical I know but like it like all of those around this table I'm sure we're all of us deeply concerned about world poverty deeply concerned and I came across a statistic recently which actually frightened me and it said that in the last 10 minutes from whilst we've been listening to the first two speakers 210 people died of hunger in the last 10 minutes in our world now this to me though arises from from something that is our world system it is is the system where we as it were commenced our lives and ride out to win over others that is what motivates all of us we are going to succeed and what's more we're going to succeed and accumulate and retain what we have made for ourselves and as long as this world exists on that system the those with the power the intellect the political maneuverings all these sorts of things that go with it are going to make money and accumulate and pay less tax and for me now there's no doubt in my mind at all that jersey is used to reduce the tax bill and if that is the case one may argue one way or another that if we don't do it someone else will and i think that's abundantly clear because if jersey doesn't exist and was wiped off the map tomorrow Guernsey would do it but we all know that don't we but is the real issue to me is sorry if I may say that there's a further complication to this before I finally get what I want to pick up on one point you made there and I'll put it to both of you that idea of competition there if it tax is a part of making money and yes money is why businesses are in the business of doing there will be competitive tax regimes in different countries because we can't have standardization around the world so that if one person is always going to try and outbid for the for the business of international companies so is Christian Aid suggesting they would like a standardization of tax convey is that something that they would envisage because unless unless you fight for that there's always going to be judged Jersey compete against guns you have a lower tax regime to attract the business we don't actually get that caught up in what is a fair amount of tax to pay or actually wats what the taxation system should be although obviously you know we're supporting partners around the world to and trying to make systems teksystems fairer our key point is about the lack of transparency and I think that is inherent in in what's Jeff is saying about the research that we commissioned we commissioned the research on potential abuse of transfer pricing because of the lack of evidence and then lack of transparency about was that what was actually going on we had a huge difficulty in trying to find out what was going on because of the levels of secrecy we commissioned a leading researcher in harvard and various other academics related to for the global final financial integrity organization in Washington so I would dispute the issue that it's not academic research but actually at the end of the day we said that the hundred sixty billion dollar figure was an estimate we have had debates and discussions which I hope were constructive with Jeff about that research the research commissioned by Richard tether we we argue that there were some flaws in in the response from Richard te her and we discuss those with Jeff and from what I understand there was an acknowledgement that there were some misunderstanding on on Richard tethers ciders to the methodology read used in making some I don't really want to get caught up in in the details because I think at the end of the day if we had a more transparent system then we would always we would all be able to see what's going on in that case in the case in that case let's let's get out of the specifics and look at the generals if the problem you had with collecting your data was a problem of secrecy surely the question then Jeff is if you've done nothing wrong you've got nothing to hide why is there such a high level of secrecy and perhaps a lack of transparency among around text transactions in Jersey well I don't believe there is but if you if you look at the the basis for that research it's it's based on big broad brush assumptions and certainly nothing has been put forward to me that would leave me to believe that the examination that we did it had any sort of weaknesses or fault lines in it well let's take the I'd like to address Mitch's point first of all though which is the presumption that sorry we're even accept that we exist off allowing people to pay less tax than the other why should the vast majority of business in this jurisdiction depends not on tax savings but on tax neutrality that's a very different thing money that arrives here is taxed in the country of source we package it from international investors from all over the world we stop double triple and tax tax filing issues by consolidating and putting that capital and it's then invested in other countries so capitals put to work where it's needed and taken form where it's not needed all we avoid is putting a third layer of taxation on top of the taxes already do in the country of origination and the country of destination so so to claim a auto to to put across the fact that this is we simply existing off tax arbitrage is a gross misrepresentation of what this jurisdiction does in terms of transparency if I may may I just come in there and say I don't want to to disagree with with Jeff and know him so well and but the vast majority of our individual trust industry survives on the basis that when money is put into trust it is no longer the money or assets of the said law and it is subject to then those assets a subject not to any Jersey taxation but to no taxation and therefore the whole of the personal trust industry is designed to enable those trust assets to accumulate income and to grow in value without paying any taxes for a period of years now that is essentially very simple and whilst it may be true Jeff's example is absolutely right that Jersey does play an important role in facilitating development projects around the world which involves the cooperation of many different corporates who reside in different countries and pay taxes in different countries they need in a text neutral jurisdiction and I've seen many examples of that in my time but nevertheless we come back to this position really where folk do want to find a secure place in which to retain their assets and pay as little tax as possible we provide those facilities and that is of concern but coming back to the point that is under discussion if I may the the issue of confidentiality is another facet of of all this because those with wealth will want to keep their affairs secret they don't want it to be known and I think that would apply to most of us here aren't we so self-centered we wouldn't want anyone to see our bank statements regularly would you like it in the Evening Post we wouldn't want that to happen would we and folk don't like to disclose what they're doing and corporates are the same they're concerned to big corners with what their competitors are going to be doing they don't want to disclose this is all part of a system with which to me are our Lord Jesus wanted to in his radical way to say this will not work the system is going to come to an end and that's how I see it yeah if I may interject building on on that point some comments have been made about the fact the competition is a a fact of life that we all right to win in business or personally I would suggest that for Christians there's a different perspective I mean back wake me Mike mostly for Christians there is a different perspective that the purpose of the business is not an end in itself but is rather a means to an end and that we have to have I would suggest certainly coming from a Catholic social teaching point of view two fundamental principles in mind the first is that the protection of human dignity and the second one is the promotion of the common good and it's not an either/or it's a both and that we promote the common goods by protecting the dignity of human beings and one of the most fundamental aspects of that is the right to to not live in a degrading poverty and through protection of the dignity of human beings in all of its aspects we actually promote the common good and the finance industry is not immune from that finance it is made up of human beings we are human beings we are moral beings so therefore the finance industry has a moral dimension to unnecessary moral dimension to it and so in our actions in how we act as individuals in how the industry is regulated in how businesses operate there's a necessary ethical moral dimension to it the details of that can be worked out in detail but there have to be fundamental principles and so just picking up on the Poverty Point poverty of course is a broader concept than material poverty poverty there could be many different types of poverty spiritual poverty poverty of Education educational ability poverty of resources in one kind or another but a fundamental aspect of human dignity is the ability for people to be able to lift themselves out of poverty in all of its aspects and so my my challenge to to Jersey and its financing she would be to what extent does it contribute to the common good as I've defined it and the protection of human dignity I like responses on that but yes halibut jet first can I respond to that a large part of what we do is to take a cab and put it to work around the world so if you look at places like India and China why have they in relative terms I realize it's still poverty there and the whole thing about wealth distribution that sort of thing but in relative terms since about nineteen ninety when they deregulated in n raised elements of globalization and capitalism they have generated extraordinary advances in tackling poverty through wealth creation hundreds of millions of people have been pulled out of poverty now capitalism in its tooth and claw nature may have weaknesses it certainly does it needs regulating it needs a moral dimension it needs boundaries but nonetheless it is the most effective system that mankind of yet devised to pull people out of poverty and the way that is done the way those countries have done that China did it through using an International Finance Center which is very similar to Jersey which is Hong Kong because the international investor community didn't trust onshore Chinese regulation onshore Chinese laws but they did trust on calm and that's the reason they put business in jersey they trust our commitment to the enforcement of contract law to the respect for the rule of law for sound regulation for expertise and doing things in the right way and I believe there are lots of examples of funds that are created here that go into infrastructure development in places like India the 3i group structure most of its infrastructure into India through here that's building roads it's building schools it's building hospitals we're taking our financial know-how and applying that to the common good and making a profit out of you at the same time I think I come to you on that um okay first of all to pick up on the issue of human dignity surely it is part of human dignity that individuals and countries can stand on their own two feet and that is what tax justice is about its enabling countries to do that so if there are things going on in offshore financial centres which undermine the ability of countries to do that and their dignity then that's an issue for us I mean going back to the point about I don't get into a huge debate about economic models in emerging economies I should just point out though that in India every night more people go to bed hungry even today than virtually across the whole of Africa so whatever economic model is going on in countries like India it has enough is not addressed the issue of poverty or gross inequality but I want to go back to my main point which is really about transparency because we are really not about bashing finance offshore financial centres we are concerned as Christian Aid about transparency and that's what we are appealing to Jersey to address and there are three things that we think offshore financial centres can do one is what we called the tax Taliban approach which is the approach taken by the head of fight came and finance who accused me in a blog of being the tax Taliban so it's basically burying your head in the sand and demonizing anyone who criticizes you as being you know a terrorist in this case or whatever the alternative the next approach could be to hire PR firms and repeat statements such as we are a well regulated and transparent jurisdiction and I don't deny that you know some of what Jeff says I I can see I'm prepared to accept is true but it's a rather defensive position and it's max a bit more PR than sort of you know concrete content as to what Joe is going to about this the third option is that Jersey recognizes that the tide is turning on transparency and sees the writing on the wall it really isn't just us who are banging on about this the Indian finance minister last week was saying that what is needed to tackle tax dodging is automatic information exchange including with offshore financial centres the World Bank is saying the same the CBI even in their submission to the UK Parliament of the committee on development said that they think that secrecy jurisdictions should be ended and last week we had the outgoing deputy in Guernsey Charles Parkinson talking about the fact that guernsey needs to see the writing on the wall and for its future prosperity needs to rethink the whole basis of its current economy and go back to traditional industries such as tourism because you know relying on loopholes which then hmrc in the UK then tries to close it is not a way forward so we would say look at those options go for the third option I lined out which is about protecting your own economy and a stable future challenging corruption yeah because I'm afraid there is corruption this system and assist in developing countries to mobilize revenue yeah I just say to keep my response this is two names to a speech for Christian Aid not it not a discussion or anything yeah can I just paraphrase though can I paraphrase what you're quite like you to respond to the idea that for jersey guernsey other international opera an shal centres in the light of the financial crisis and the floors perhaps but becoming able to in capitalism and paraphrasing do you think the writing is on the wall or do you see there being few substantial changes to jersey snacks regulation in the coming year no I don't and I don't recognize the characterization that Helens placing on Jersey in terms of its attitudes to transparency in its compliance with transparency the the governance bodies that set transparency standards around the world are the International Monetary the Financial Stability Board the Financial Action Task Force and the OECD and we exceed compliance with their standards by a considerable margin Jersey has frequently performed as one of the highest performing jurisdictions in the world at meeting current international standards now Christian Aid and others might wish those stands were different we are already know different system but this is a transparent and a compliant jurisdiction and to characterize it as anything other is misleading and the other problem I have particularly with Christian Aid is you know if they call themselves but first aid or humanitarian aid or any other kind of aid I wouldn't mind this kind of of allegations that don't have substantive evidence sitting down because it is a Christian organization the truth should matter we should not speculate or exaggerate or port forward into public domain and allow people to think things are fact would patently are not that's most misleading may I may I come in their fish that's all I with you and I think you can Jeff is absolutely right on the transparency bit Jersey is doing extremely well by comparison with others we've got to I think we've got to recognize the enormous were Curtis being put in by Jeff and also by his colleagues and the Commission and in the states in general to to get transparency on the go with with all the major countries but there was I still come back to to these interesting factors that are behind it all one of which is transparency very good but have you all realized have we all realized that governments are part of this capitalist system now it's not only corporations and individuals that are trying to accumulate for themselves and an end and then store for themselves and make provision for their people their part of the system now the capitalist system to get their take of the profits and so they're all trying to I with one another to get the most they can out of a whole system and of course transparency is a problem even to the mage countries so we find that the major countries don't want disclosure a complete disclosure of everything that's going on it's not only the corporates and the individuals it's it's all the system which is designed for self which is which is the one thing that our Lord Jesus Christ came to say you can't do it you can't serve God and Mammon you you you have to choose between the two and I hate my pretty by bringing father James the Erie yes on that particular if you would but may I just make my third point before you do and and and it's this that the the interesting thing is that it's not only Christians who feel as a problem with all this i think you Johnny have mentioned earlier that the the economist's of our world now view the market system the capitalist system as having fundamental flaws and the reason is that in the last 20 or 30 years I believe because of the decline of the moral impetus of Christianity in our Western world the market system has become vastly more violent vastly more determined to make money as long as you obey the law and meet the regulator's demands never mind your conscience thank you thank you and it's project of what your work in the industry for 13 years of course coming ordained can you reflect them on um well I agree very very much with Richards final point that I believe that I think it's important for us not to sure go individual responsibility by saying oh well it's the system whether it's a government or a large corporation whatever because these systems are made up of individuals ultimately and so therefore the responsibility lies with individuals and I do believe that I think it was the late Coulson in the US who coined this phrase but there is a there's a balance constantly been solved between the internal and the external police officer basically the internal police officer is our conscience and we obey the natural law called obey the natural law we can debate what exactly that means but the internal police officer and the external police officer are rules regulations that are enforced by governments and by the cops basically and so he contrasts conscience and cops and he would argue and I agree with him that in recent decades with a decline in a personal moral responsibility an awareness of the need for personal moral responsible responsibility there's been a consequent increase in the need to have external compliance external regulation and those so then people endeavouring to avoid that sigler polls in as well based on my personal experience I believe if the fundamental question is is it possible for a Christian to work with a clear conscience of good conscious in the finance ind stry I would say yes because i did for more than a decade but it's important for Christians important for everyone but especially for Christians to have an informed conscience to constantly be forming their conscience and to be thinking practically and critically about how they engage with that industry because ultimately as our Lord said you cannot serve God and Mammon if you put mama not as a god that's a form of idolatry but wealth finance industry as a means to an end the ends which I stated protection of human dignity promotion of the common good the capitalist system insofar as it does that and is subordinate to that is is okay and if I'm a Helen and in a an online document from Christian Aid which is a guide for grassroots activists and praise is made of a march a protest that happened in 2009 in Jersey which was number of people around Europe jersey residents one Jersey MP that they did a walk around some Helier stopping outside banks making their point heard twitter using Twitter and everything else what would now you're here in jersey and jersey is one of the International Finance centers that Christian Aid have have listed what would be your call to residents of Jersey to the hundred thousand or service in live here to respond to the financial system under which they are under which they live I this is my first visit to Jersey and I've barely been here 24 hours but I've picked up on the fact that there are issues for people who live in Jersey there's a shortage of housing there are issues about public services etc so you know there's a question about whether the the current model that you have in Jersey is serving all the residents here so I would suggest that people kind of reflect on that and there certainly is a moral issue as Christians about anything that's jersey or other offshore financial centres are doing which has an impact on other jurisdictions and the people in them and you know this is what the crux of the matter is about it's about jerseys integrity it's about the principle of you know do do no harm and so I would appeal to residents whether it's through Christian Aid or through other organizations to call on Jersey to do the right thing basically for the future prosperity of Jersey but for the poor of the world and though I'm just asking for initial first steps alongside the Indian finance minister and the World Bank and others who called for automatic information exchange why couldn't can't Jersey fully adopt the EU savings tax directive for example you know jeff says that jersey prides itself on being a well-regulated jurisdiction there's a further step that could be taken because at the moment you're not fully site jersey is not fully signed up to the EU savings directive yeah in terms of automatic information it's dangerous good night jersey could also sign the OECD and Council of Europe convention multi natural convention it's gone it's called the mutual administrative assistance in tax matters convention a bit of a mouthful this also provides a framework the automatic information exchanged because whatever jeff says about the OECD and the fact that Jersey is on the white list with which is good news but unfortunately that is based on having these bilateral transfer of information agreements which are on request and developing countries can't benefit from those and many people have pointed this out I'm sorry before I think we're getting into the weeds it's like this I'm could I ask you though it's very quickly come back on those two points of where jersey is seem to be inefficient in the eyes of Christian Aid and secondly why do you think there hasn't been and occupies sant'elia protests with a docked by London we've had a Wall Street but actually they've been comparatively very little disquiet here on the island why do you think of it because we don't get involved in the kind of things that have caused the orb in a trigger for the financial crisis if you look at what happened in the US the lehman's you look at what happened to the state Eddie banks in the UK Jersey doesn't do that kind of business what we do is very straightforward the investments that are placed here going back out into the world they're enhancing the retirement savings of millions of people they're actually helping ordinary people by enhancing and improving investment returns we meet all current international standards global standards on on information exchange I'm sure Christian Aid and others would want everything to be a book by everybody will probably pushes towards the Scandinavian system which is everybody's personal information is published online all the tax returns etc if you look at the UN Charter of human rights the right to individual privacy legitimate process is enshrined in there including your personal information your data and your financial information if if it becomes a global standard to have a full open disclosure over everybody's business that I'm sure we will sign up to it it current isn't it's on the wish list of many NGOs an Asian organizations and elements of international for that have some sympathy with our views so I wouldn't accept for a moment that we're not meeting or exceeding international standards or indeed that there is a problem with a style of business we do and we had 60 countries here from the developing world in a conference two years ago we invited them to come here because we believe sharing and capacity building sharing how we have created a system where you can have functioning course you can have an absence of corruption you can have the rule of the more you can have effective regulation you can have expertise that builds value for the community we want to share that with developing countries because that is the route out of poverty a trillion dollars available important to Africa of the last 30 years in it today than it was 30 years ago so I've got to say I believe the efforts of corporate aid organizations like Christian have been effective and the primary problem in these countries is a lack of proper infrastructure governance and capacity and when we talk to these countries and we said would you value more information on a tax information I've got very few clients in those countries but if we did would you value it for goodness sake no we that just gives us more bureaucracy more burdens more records to try and work with we need functioning courts we need our political leaders stop fighting each other we need an absence of wars you know we read something much more fundamental than your peripheral Western sophisticated solutions okay I've got one eye on the clocks I'm going to have father James can I just ask you two to close with a brief reflection what are your you tend to the pastoral needs of a great number of people on this island from the finance sector right the way through to people in need I relative poverty here in Jersey what would you say are your hopes and fears for the next five years where do you think Jersey could go wrong if it doesn't take stock of its of its values as though well I've been in jersey for 18 months and as you say in my pastoral work I I interact with people at all levels of social strata and I've been astonished at the degree of inequality that exists here here on the island in from very very great amount of wealth concentrated in some individuals to a lot of apps absolute relative material and other types of poverty among some people I know some people here in San tellier if you have to work two jobs in order to live my hope would be that the New Jersey finance industry will continue to operate as as jeff says in a what he believes to be a transparent and open way and that it will focus not merely on the common good the common good internationally but also of what how it can contribute in a positive way to the common good of all the people here on this island as well so because I question I have I don't know the answer to it is to what extent does the finance industry here operate for the is it beneficial for most of the residents of this island ? and I think we will have to leave it with a question mark I'm afraid and there we have the title for our next business connects grounds debate like to thank all the participants for being so candid so honest so brave and coming forward today and please don't forget the Christian Aid event georgetown methodist church this evening at 7-730 georgetown methodist church do you have about a lot of the very good work that they do as well to Richard to Jeff to have them to father James thank you very much indeed for being part of this panel today okay well from offshore finance to Islamic finance that's the subject of next week's business connect we're meeting here next Friday from one till 2pm will be joined by Patrick suckday who is the international head of the Barnabas fund the charitable fund which supports the persecuted Church globally and he'll be talking to us on the subject of Islamic finance and how we understand the implications of it whatever you might think of Patrick's view on the industry or whether you match actually work or part of your work is within that industry Patrick is an internationally renowned speaker and writer so it'll definitely be worth coming along to listen to him speak on that subject so please leave us your contact details we can keep you posted what's coming up but thank you for joining us thank you you