‘Haven tag here to stay’
Thursday 14th May 2009, 2:30PM BST.
GuernseyFinance chief executive Peter Niven addressing members of the Chamber of Commerce on the future of the finance industry after the island was put on the OECD’s white list. (Picture by Tom Tardif, 0771456)
GUERNSEY will never escape the ‘tax haven’ tag, according to GuernseyFinance chief executive Peter Niven.
He told Chamber of Commerce members at its recent breakfast seminar that the island’s recent white-listing at the G20 summit was great news, but not the be all and end all.
‘There will always be people out there that will call us [a tax haven].
‘The white list was a battle in a long-term war that will continue and is why we need GuernseyFinance out there batting for Guernsey to make sure that as far as possible we counter all these accusations and insinuations.’
Mr Niven (pictured) said it was questionable how long Guernsey would be able to use its white-listing to its advantage as those on the grey list would be working quickly to change their status, but it had certainly been noted in China on a recent visit.
‘China was very interested in how we got onto the white list.
‘Particularly as the major countries they use for their corporate entities, such as BVI, weren’t on it, so it’s important in places like China we use that to get business through.’
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Mr Niven needs to ask himself why people think of Guernsey as a tax haven!
Are we not expecting an influx of the rich from the UK?
Why might they want to come here?
Because tax is lower…..
That’s just the way it is – those who criticise Guernsey overlook the facts that we are fortunate in having lower tax rates and have not set up a special arrangements to attract the wealthy.
Whether we actually want an influx of the rich is another matter!
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The programme on TV last night about various islands certainly gave the impression of Guernsey being a tax haven with a drug problem.
Pity they didn’t show more of the attraction and ordinary Guernsey folk.
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Hi Stephen, I saw the Martin Clunes programme too and I agree with you completely. The bit on Sark wasn’t so bad but the section on Guernsey was totally misleading. It did indeed give the impression that we are an island loaded with the retired idle rich, guarded by a gung-ho customs squad racing around in fast boats trying to intercept boatloads of incoming Columbian drugs runners.
Blame the show’s producers for sure but much of this is down to the naivety of Deputy Sillars, who himself came over as a car loving playboy, and Rob Prow, who came across as an over enthusiastic extra from the set of Hawaii five-o. Anyone with half an ounce of media savvy could have told them they would be portrayed in this way!
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Oh yes, and Martin Clunes’ “Islands of Britain” programme forgot to mention that Guernsey is the only country in the world that has steadfastly refused to help stricken savers in any way.
Says it can’t afford to do so yet and yet it sends Peter Niven around the world promoting its affluent finance centre and attracting high rollers to live in Guernsey.
Doesn’t make sense to me.
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Oh pleeeeease, don’t get into that yet again MJA. “You” invested, “you” took the risks, and, if it had been successful, “You” would have taken the profits, too. I notice we don’t hear any investors who got out in time volunteering their profits to help those who lost out! If you’d invested in the stock market and the shares had crashed (as mine did!) have I (you) got any comeback on the States? Absolutely not. The same applies to Banks.
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Martini
For the umpteenth umpteenth time to various participants in these online fora, it was not an investment – repeat not an investment; it was a simple deposit of life’s savings in the Guernsey operation of a UK building society, the Cheshire, at an average interest rate.
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MJA
For the umpteenth umpteenth time to various participants in these online fora, it was not an investment – repeat not an investment; it was a simple deposit of life’s savings in the Guernsey operation of a UK building society, the Cheshire, at an average interest rate.
thank god there is somone else who knows the difference between the two as i was thinking i was alone.
comparing stocks and shares to putting money in a bank account is just plain ridiculous.
Martini took the risk that he would be right about something and got it wrong which happens millions of times a day to millions of people winners and losers, thats the normal workings of the markets. how anyone can compare banks going bust through reckless adventures is beyond me.
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i hope you receive all your moneuy back i really do but not every section on this forum is about landsbanki so please stop with it.take it up with trott et al not us all the time.i have gsy issues on my mind and will not be lobbying anyone to help you, your decisions,your problem.in fact take it up with landsbanki,they had your lolly so they may be able to help you claw it back.
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MJA You said, “For the umpteenth umpteenth time to various participants in these online fora, it was not an investment”.
It absolutly was an investment as there was an interest return offered. The difference being is that if you had put the cash in a safe deposit box for SAFE keeping it would still be there no matter who has a call on the banks assets.
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Steven
If you buy stocks and shares – or otherwise speculate – it’s definitely an investment.
But if you merely make a deposit, it’s a deposit.
You can pay a deposit towards a property but once you purchase it it becomes an investment.
So you’re recommending that everyone puts whatever spare cash they have in a safe because you now cannot trust any GFSC-licensed bank. I see.
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MJA
your right about what you describe apart from the house bit, a house can be bought purely for speculation but thats not always the case, many people who own their own houses bought them for a place to settle and not because they are looking for higher return. many who have no intentions of selling probably couldn`t care less how the market moves.
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MJA. You are confusing the banks business activities. Take for an example any business that deals in cash as its stock in trade, could be any, casino, bookmaker, bank or building society. They all need cash in order to operate their business. Every business carries risk and anybody that lends a business cash in order to operate is compensated for that risk usually by way of a cash return or interest on the money. Now if a person does not wish to accept any risk a bank will offer a safe deposit box which is chargeable but keeps your money safe with no risk.
So now to follow your logic would be to assume that if a person lent their money to a bookmaker who failed to cover his bets properly and became insolvent the creditor deserves his money back. I don’t think so.
The confusions arise because of the passage of time from when banks only offered safe keeping, for a charge, then diversified into lending, but the service does still exist and should rightly be offered whenever offering an interest paying account, together with an explanation of the risks involved.
Did I recommend putting cash in a safe? I’m sure I didn’t as it’s not as safe as we are led to believe.
For this explanation it helps to look at cash for what it is, a store of purchasing power.
Rightly, money put into a safe deposit box should have the same purchasing power when taken out as when put in. But it dosen’t, someones stolen some of it in one of the longest running frauds ever. We have all been fooled into accepting inflation as a fact of life. It’s theft pure and simple. And it’s because of inflation and theft of purchasing power that people are coralled like sheep into depositing money for interest so the banks can speculate with it via fractional reserve banking (a method of lending more money than they actually have). This will continue whilst we allow cash and credit to be governed by private cartels. Most people think that the Bank of England is run by the Government. Wrong. There is nothing federal about The Federal Reserve of the USA either. The International Monetry Fund, World Banking Organisation, I’m beginning to laugh now.
The fraud of the century is just getting started. No, if you have any spare purchasing power cash is the last place to store it, whether under the mattress or safe deposit box.
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MJA – you are right that a bank deposit is not speculation. It’s value (ie the amount that the bank is obliged to pay back to you) does not go up and down according to market forces. It increases purely by operation of interest payments, and decreases purely by the effect of the general reduction in the value of money through inflation. So yes, there is a difference between a bank deposit and buying shares or a house.
However, where I think your reasoning falls down is that you seem to be saying that just because it was not a speculative investment, and because the bank is contractually obliged to pay you X when you ask for it, that you can assume that you will always receive X.
That is not the case. Banks do not keep your money safely tucked away ready for the day that you ask for it back. They loan it elsewhere, they invest it, they make profits and they make losses. Legally speaking, your bank deposit is no safer than a loan to the man in the pub. You have no control over what happens to that money after you have handed it over. The regulators are meant to ensure that the banks don’t behave like the man in the pub and simply spend your loaned funds on a round for everyone in the pub, but the regulators cannot (and have never pretended that they will) guarantee the financial stability of every institution.
The risk for depositors is low, but the risk is there nonetheless. The real question is not whether you should have your money just because you deposited it rather than bought a speculative investment. The real question is whether the GFSC did not do something which a prudent regulator should have done. If the GFSC performed its function then I am afraid that, unfortunate though it is, you and other depositors simply got your fingers burned by the natural operation of the financial system into which you entered. If the GFSC did drop a ball, then you have a legitimate complaint about that.
However, almost all of the Landsbanki debate on here is not about whether the GFSC performed its function, but a simple complaint of “I lost my money when I didn’t expect to and therefore it is wrong”. Unfortunately, that view is not correct.
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