Guernsey Finance comes into 2026 with more cohesion, clarity and confidence as industry faces renewal challenge

Guernsey Finance has called on the industry to move forward together as it struck an optimistic tone at its annual industry update.

New Chief Executive Barnaby Malloy sees the next chapter as being full of opportunity and success that will benefit the wider community and economy.

Work is currently nearing completion on a framework to support the future competitiveness and growth of Guernsey's finance industry, led by Economic Development with support from key industry bodies including the promotional body.

“Over the past year at Guernsey Finance, we've done a lot of work, engaged with the insight and the analysis, to try and understand how we can get greater clarity about where the opportunities lie, what are Guernsey's key strengths and what is Guernsey Finances’ role to best support industry,” he said in opening the event. 

“That clarity is going to be strengthened further by the growth strategy framework. Together, this evidence rich view will help us understand where global demand is shifting, and what Guernsey products and services have really got teeth to be competitive. What do we all need to do to remain relevant?  

“For the first time, we're going to have a single jurisdictional strategy shaped by industry, enabled by government, worked on also by the promotional body and the regulator. We're going to have one single reference point to make decisions by. I'm really excited about this.”

Cohesion was not just desirable, he said, but is going to be “essential if we're going to remain competitive”.

“The world is changing,” he said.

“Guernsey is not immune to the impact of that change. The very pillars which our financial ecosystem is built on, they need to evolve. We all need to adapt. It's going to be an iterative process. The success is dependent on how well we can collaborate during that process. It's a time for renewal, for new ideas. We need to lean into our key strengths, innovation, agility. This is exciting.”

Mr Malloy took up the post early in December.

It followed the resignation of Rupert Pleasant on 14 November as an independent investigation was launched into footage recorded on a Teams presentation.

Mr Malloy addressed that in his speech.

“Events at the end of last year understandably prompted questions about our organization. We listen to those questions carefully. We can understand why matters like these can test confidence. They can create uncertainty. So let me talk to it directly,” he said.

“Now, two individuals left Guernsey Finance at the end of last year during a period of intense scrutiny, their actions did not in any way reflect our organisation. 

“That was a really disappointing and challenging period for many of us, but what matters is not the event itself. It's how we respond as a board.

"We immediately commissioned an independent investigation by a leading law firm, a review by the ODPA, both of which have concluded and found no wider issues across the organisation and culture, governance arrangements continue to operate as they should, and we've strengthened them with the appointment of three fantastic new board directors.”

He said that Guernsey Finance did not stop, but continued with business as usual.

“We move forward with confidence, and we're coming into this year with more cohesion, more clarity and more confidence than we've ever had before as an organisation.”

Last year its market development team produced initiatives, including workshops, seminars, networking opportunities, that all culminated in over 1,700 meetings and nearly 1,000 introductions. 

“A meeting could be the difference between an intermediary having Guernsey on its shortlist or not. An introduction could be the difference between a mandate coming to Guernsey or not, but they don't always equal that nice, clean outcome.

“Measures are really difficult for an organization like Guernsey Finance, especially as opposed to a private organisation. We recognize our KPIs aren't perfect. We understand that it's complicated, but we're doing a lot of work now with the GIBA council, with government, in aligning our jurisdictional growth strategy to understand how we can sharpen them.”

Its digital reach went up by 32% to 11.5 million as engagement went up by 64%.

“We worked really hard with policy makers last year,  at MP dinners, at party conferences, and working with our partners at CityUK. All of that work was augmented by the types of research that the second Frontier Economics report gave us, so I can sit next to an MP and have a really empowering, tangible conversation about the benefits that Guernsey brings, perhaps through infrastructure funds, to their constituency, that resonates.”

Over 1,600 people went to Guernsey Finance events last year.

There was also inward work on artificial intelligence optimization to make sure that when those queries are happening, they get responses which are based on objective fact data sets, key messages, not misinformation.