Brexit represents a “significant opportunity” for domiciles bearing good relationships with the UK, according to Dominic Wheatley, chief executive of Guernsey Finance.
Speaking at the regulator concerns panel at the World Captive Forum 2019 in Miami, Wheatley, who emphasised that he is not a regulator, predicted that brexit will happen, despite current uncertainty.
He explained: “In terms of Brexit there is UK confusion, EU confusion, and confusion between the two but we can be sure of a couple of things.”
“One is that Brexit will happen. Very few commentators think that a situation where the UK changes its mind or has a second referendum are likely. The overwhelming expectation is that there will be a last minute deal.”
Wheatley suggested that the impact on the majority of global captive domiciles would be minor.
He said: “From the point of view of insurance, most of the jurisdictions represented at this conference are already third countries as far as Europe is concerned and I don’t think Brexit is going to be in any way helpful to the jurisdictions and I don’t think it will make any difference to them competitively.”
“I don’t think brexit will be a particularly significant issue for the market. I don’t think it will make the EU more hostile. The EU will continue to be a difficult trading partner for insurance generally.”
However, he noted that there could be a significant opportunity for jurisdictions that had close relationships with the UK.
He expanded: “What will change and could be quite interesting is that the UK will no longer be on the other side of the EU border. The UK has given Gibraltar certain assurances that Gibraltar will keep its direct access to UK insurance.”
“There is no obvious reason why Gibraltar should be uniquely given an advantage in the marketplace and therefore it will be open for other jurisdictions to seek the same sort of directness as Gibraltar has to be able to write insurance directly into the UK.”
“There are significant opportunities there for jurisdictions with good relationships with the UK.”