Senior counsel Christopher Reed has been published in Funds Europe's Jersey Report 2018. A panel of experts in Jersey’s funds industry share their views about setting up Jersey funds, ease of doing business and efficient transactions.

What are likely to be the biggest digital advancements in the funds arena in the next five years?

Technological advancements come quickly and often faster than governments and even technology professionals can fully understand them. This is particularly apparent in relation to the recent increase in interest in the digital technologies surrounding cryptocurrency, blockchain technology and digital assets. With this brave and complex new world comes a variety of challenges that any jurisdiction will have to overcome in order to be successful, including issues surrounding CDD (customer due diligence) and KYC (know-your-client) collection, anti-money laundering, valuation and custody arrangements.

Jersey is well positioned to become a leader in this area, with the government standing firmly behind its desire for Jersey to be a market leader in the area of fintech. The government’s pro-business approach and fintech-friendly attitude helps to encourage innovation, and the commercially aware regulator that is accessible to industry, are both key elements for encouraging this business to put its trust in Jersey.

The biggest digital advancements in the funds arena are likely to be increasing knowledge and “tooling-up” in relation to the risks of cyber and data security and creating suitable digital solutions to protect against those risks, which will be essential to both enable funds holding digital assets, including cryptocurrencies, to take in new investors and investments and also to protect and monitor the security, and therefore value, of their digital assets.

Christopher Reed is a Senior Counsel in Walkers' Jersey office. He joined Walkers in 2018 and is a member of the Investment Funds and Corporate Groups.

The full Jersey report can be found here.