Hands off training funds, regulator told by finance

Friday 12th February 2010, 2:30PM GMT.

Paul Meader GUERNSEY’S finance industry has issued a ‘hands off our money’ warning to the regulator.

It came in response to news that the Guernsey Financial Services Commission is set to withdraw the £435,000-a-year grant it gives the GTA University Centre.

But the Guernsey International Business Association said the money came from its members and they wanted to continue supporting the training agency.

‘At present, Giba provides substantial funding to the GTA to match the contribution of government. It does this through a contribution to the GFSC which is then channelled direct into the agency,’ said chairman Giba Paul Meader (pictured).

‘The finance industry has been happy for a proportion of our fees to be provided to the GTA in this way to support the valuable work they do both for the finance industry and the wider economy.

‘If the GFSC will not in the future act as this conduit, then Giba members would wish to continue to fund the GTA via another route and would, consequently, need to see its contribution to the GFSC fall by an equal amount.’

The GFSC said it planned to spend the portion of licence fees given to the GTA on dealing with increased global scrutiny.

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1
Pete Burtenshaw

February 12, 2010 at 4:54 pm

Why should the tax payer indirectly pay for a training agency for the benefit of an industry which has already benefited to the tune of 50 mill + with the compliments of the tax payer of a favourable tax system i.e the illigal z10. I can not see why the finance industry can not collectively fund the GTA after all these very organisations spend millions upon millions on erecting huge posh glasshouse monstrosities so a few hundred thousand pound per year from each for the GTA would not be missed……..

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2
The Man

February 14, 2010 at 12:15 pm

Erm Pete, thats the point of the story.

Aa far as I know The GFSC runs solely from licence fees from licence holders, NOT taxpayers funds. Its from these licence fees that the GTA grant is paid.

I agree that the finance industry should fund the GTA (who are excellent by the way), however its a bit of a convoluted way of going about it including the GFSC in the money-go-round.

If the industry want to pay directly, they should, and reduce their fees paid accordingly. The GFSC should be judged on their effectiveness at fulfilling their remit, not their bottom line.

Yes they say they need to implement measure to look at the wider global economic picture to avoid another Landesbank, however they should already have the resources to do this. Plus they had enough information on Landesbank and didnt act then, so whats the point??

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