GUERNSEY and Jersey must form a closer working partnership in their promotion and provision of financial services, according to a prominent banker.

In this month’s edition of Business Brief, Andreas Tautscher (pictured), chief country officer for Deutsche Bank in the Channel Islands, said Guernsey and Jersey expending energy to compete with one another no longer made sense in the current climate.

Instead, he wanted to see the two islands play to their strengths as an ‘integral whole’ and use their strong profiles in the industry together.

‘As the professional service providers are closely aligned, there is already a sense that it is not about comparing Jersey or Guernsey individually for many organisations – instead, it has evolved into whether a structure can be domiciled in the Channel Islands rather than in another jurisdiction.

‘The size of the economies would never justify huge amounts of money being spent on marketing when such spend is compared to that available from the major economies, so it is not sensible to overlap when promoting the islands – particularly in the emerging markets, where efforts are required to build profile.

‘If there was more coordination to ensure that we did not overlap, we could use the spend more effectively across the various markets we are targeting.’

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