What Guernsey firms should learn from recent GFSC outcomes In an earlier article, I explored how an enforcement action is rarely a cliff-edge event. More often, it is the endpoint of a supervisory story that has gone off-course: control failure, credibility failure and tempo failure combine...
Why Guernsey is Well Placed for Funds Investing in Emerging and Unconventional Asset Classes Space is no longer solely the domain of governments and national space agencies. Satellite communications, earth observation, launch services and space-enabled data have developed into commercial markets capable of attracting institutional and...
Insight, but not the whole picture Public statements can be very useful on individual accountability. They can also be easy to over-read. That is because they are one of the few public sources that show how a regulator attributes responsibility in practice. They show what the regulator...
How escalation happens — and how to prevent it Enforcement is rarely a cliff-edge moment for a licensed firm. More often, it’s the predictable end of a supervisory story that’s gone off-course. In Guernsey, the Guernsey Financial Services Commission (“GFSC”) engages, probes, visits, tests—and expects remediation. Supervision...
Culture as Strategic Asset – or Regulatory Risk Organisational culture is often the elephant in the room: felt by many, but difficult to name and even harder to address. A well-aligned culture can simultaneously drive business growth, compliance and performance. When misaligned, it can foster misconduct,...
Many Guernsey firms, regulated and unregulated, outsource discrete activities to address local capacity constraints, access specialist capability, achieve cost efficiency and keep internal teams focused on core business. Outsourcing is more than a change of delivery route; it requires deliberate design, clear accountability and ongoing...
Culture as Strategic Asset - or Regulatory Risk Strong organisational culture enhances performance, innovation, and stakeholder trust. Studies have noted its importance to businesses, but also observed that there is often a large gap between the stated values of a firm and the lived behaviour.1 The...
Conflicts of interest are inevitable in financial services. In Guernsey—a close-knit jurisdiction with overlapping roles and relationships—the challenge is not whether conflicts arise, but how effectively they are identified, managed, and disclosed. In 2025, the Guernsey Financial Services Commission (GFSC) completed thematic reviews of both...