A LEAP of faith has paid off for a group of fiduciary company directors. Michael Betley, Michael Heyworth and Jonathan Plimley set up the Trust Corporation of the Channel Islands in March last year and have already met their three-year business plan target.

All three are trained UK solicitors.

As part of their strategy to keep the company ‘top heavy’, they have appointed Ken Wrigley to the post of finance director.

Bucking the mergers and acquisitions trend, TCCI prides itself on being a small company with a hands-on, personal service.

‘Setting up wasn’t a decision that we took lightly, or overnight – it was a leap of faith,’ said managing director Mr Betley.

He said that because of the large size of some of the trust companies, clients were now being dealt with by less-senior members of staff – not an approach wanted by all.

The directors ensure that at least two of them have a good working knowledge of all clients’ affairs so that decisions can be made quickly.

‘Wealthy people like to deal with decision makers and we found it increasingly difficult to do business like that working in a large organisation,’ said Mr Betley. ‘That is fine for less demanding clients, but ours want a quick response.’

Mr Betley and his colleagues praised the Guernsey Financial Services Commission for its handling of their application for a licence under the regulations introduced in April 2001.

‘All credit to them in terms of encouraging new business,’ said Mr Betley.

‘The feeling I got was that they believe some of the smaller companies are going to be very good for Guernsey Plc and might be around for longer than some of the big boys.’

Mr Wrigley is a chartered accountant with private practice and banking sector experience and he has strong technical and training abilities.

‘Our private-practice backgrounds reflect our highly individual approach to meeting our clients’ needs and, with Ken on board, we will be able to substantially improve our client reporting and compliance functions,’ said Mr Betley.

TCCI believes that the fiduciary law is still in the process of bedding down, but that it has been beneficial for business.

‘I don’t think it has affected us and Guernsey has come out very favourably in terms of the Isle of Man and Jersey, where they take a less-involved approach,’ said Mr Betley.

‘The commission here talked to the industry throughout the process.’

His only criticism was regulatory crossover between sectors, such as the differing ‘know your customer’ rules in the fiduciary and banking areas.

‘There needs to be greater harmonisation between sectors and that needs to be done at commission level,’ said Mr Betley.

The Jersey Financial Services Commission has adopted a less rigorous approach to international recommendations, which made it less difficult for financial services companies to do business, he added, although he said KYC was a part of the daily routine.

The company now manages about 130 trusts and Mr Betley revealed that the average client value was £5.3m.

About 75% of its business has UK connections, but it is planning to attract more clients from further afield.

The company has recently moved into newly-refurbished offices in the former Bank of Butterfield building, Roseneath in the Grange, but does not want to grow bigger than 25 staff because of the initial reasons the men started the company.