Cayman Islands Financial Services

According to the Global Financial Centres Index (GFCI), the Cayman Islands is the 16th most competitive financial centre in the world.

The City of London Corporation is the municipal body of London’s financial district that made the study evaluating the competitiveness of 46 major financial centres located all over the world.

To assess the competitiveness of financial centres, the study evaluated many criteria that included regulation, corruption levels, the flexibility of the labour market, ease of doing business, the cost and availability of office space and development of human capital. It also took account of the results of an online survey of financial practitioners all over the world.

Each financial centre was given a score out of 1 000. London was ranked 1st, and its score was 765, while Cayman scored 604.

Cayman has been ranked 16th, which is behind such traditional onshore centres as London, New York and Hong Kong, however, it is ahead of such offshore competitors as Bermuda, the Channel Islands and Dubai.

According to the City of London study, Cayman is the 16th highest-ranking financial centre, however, it is also the 11th leading country in the world as far as some financial centres placed in the table ahead of Cayman are from the same country (US and Swiss cities).

The chairman of the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA),Timothy Ridley, said that the report’s overall findings are really excellent for a country with a population of only 55 000 people.

The 5th annual Offshore Alert Financial Due Diligence Conference is scheduled in Miami on April 24, 2007. The conference plans have already been described previously.

As usual, this 2-day conference will contain much information on fraud, money laundering and limiting financial crime, therefore it is expected to be visited by offshore service providers (including bankers, accountants and regulators).

The conference will become a stage for discussion of the US State Senate report on alleged tax haven abuses entitled “Tax Haven Abuses: the Enablers, The Tools & Secrecy”. It is likely to be a lively debate between Bob Roach, the US chief investigator, and Tim Ridley, the chairman of the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA), as well as other regulators for offshore jurisdictions from Caribbean.

The results of the conference will be revealed soon.

Reliable and qualitative communication services are very important for every offshore jurisdiction. Now the Cayman Islands can surely boast of good postal service.

The Universal Postal Union has ranked the Cayman Islands Postal Service’s overnight courier service as the 5th best in the world.

The Cayman’s Express Mail System received 99% in the assessment. The assessment evaluated 6 criteria that included delivery performance and the quality of its tracking.

The Cayman’s EMS’s high ranking earned the service a gold standard from the Universal Postal Union. The gold standard was granted only 14 out of 134 participating countries.

The Minister of Communications, Arden McLean said that this was a great achievement and added that Express Mail System was just one of the services offered by the Postal Service and some other services, including customer service, have significantly improved.

In the rating, Cayman’s EMS was behind only Hong Kong, Azerbaijan, Singapore and the Republic of Korea, while the USA was only 62nd and Canada was 24th.

The Universal Postal Union is an agency of the United Nations, which is the primary forum for co-operation between postal-sector players in the world. The EMS Co-operative is its section dealing with making awards to the countries showing the best performance.

According to Dr. Dax Basdeo, Executive Director of the Cayman Islands Investment Bureau (CIIB), today as many women as men are starting new and innovative businesses, and the Investment Bureau recognizes the important contributions made and being made by women in business in Cayman Islands.

As March was Honouring Women Month, on March 23, 2007, the CIIB was glad host an event aimed at further inspiring women entrepreneurs through the stories of success of others. The Bureau’s “Inspiring Women Entrepreneurs” event was co-sponsored by the Women’s Resource Center. Some of the leading and most successful business women of Cayman were talking about their challenges and victories in business ownership at the event. Discussion contributors and specialists represented various fields, including finance, marketing, real estate, accounting legal and human resources. It is also worth mentioning that men were also encouraged to attend the event, which was free.

The Cayman Islands Chamber of Commerce (CICC) has published a new consumer guide dedicated to preventing and planning against fraud. The guide entitled Beating Fraud was supported by the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service and sponsored by Deloitte, one of the leading financial advisors in the Cayman islands, which has been there since 1973.

The 46-page guide discusses the prevalence of fraud in Cayman community, business banking fraud prevention, money laundering, preventing robbery and theft, distinguishing a genuine bank note, computer security and crimes and contingency planning.

Beating Fraud is another fraud prevention and awareness initiative of CICC, which updates 7 previous brochures on fraud prevention.

According to Chamber of Commerce President, Ms. Angelyn Hernandez, Beating Fraud is a valuable guide to any company, business owner or individual. She says, that “over 42% of fraud victims never reclaim their losses, so it is imperative that everyone safeguards themselves against fraud, and this guide can help you to do that”.

A multimedia and communications company Ktone, has become the first one to raise capital from the Cayman Angel Investors Network (CAIN).

Ktone was launched last year to offer people a new and innovative service – the possibility to keep a constant connection to the latest happenings in the Cayman Islands through their cell phones, free of charge.

The investment by 6 members of CAIN came only 6 weeks after a presentation made by Neil de Vere, Ktone managing director, to the network.

2 CAIN members will become directors in Ktone, enabling them to direct how their investment is spent more closely. One of them will be the managing director of CML Offshore Recruitment, McIntosh. According to him, the angel investors did not intend to sell their stake in Ktone for several years. In accordance with a contracted provision, Ktone can buy back the shares from the investors at a set point and at a set price down the line. McIntosh said that the CAIN members’ investment in Ktone represents a “significant minority share” in the company.

The new funds have already helped Ktone – it secured a new contract to supply multimedia displays for Owen Roberts International Airport. Also, with the help of the capital the Ktone Group will split into 3 entities, and one of them will offer telecommunications services to the majority of the Caribbean by means of a partnership with Cable & Wireless. The other major area for Ktone’s activities due to new funding is marketing.

De Vere said that CAIN and the Cayman Islands Investment Bureau have offered great assistance by providing a structured process to establish access to capital and not to delay the opportunities to expand due to a short-term lack of funds.