Leading financial service groups in the Cayman Islands have joined together to create the Cayman Islands Financial Services Association (CIFSA) to add additional weight to other efforts in the Cayman Islands to maintain its reputation as a first class international financial services centre.
The Society of Professional Accountants (CISPA), the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP), the Fund Administrators Association, the Bankers Association, the Insurance Managers Association, and the Chamber of Commerce are all supporting the initiative.
They say it is being introduced at a time when the financial services industry in most offshore financial centres is undergoing scrutiny by international bodies, and when well-regulated centres, such as the Cayman Islands, continue to receive unwarranted and uninformed comment.
The founding Board of Directors are Eric Crutchley, Charles Farrington, Eduardo D’Angelo P. Silva and Ben Gillooly.
“Our aim is to foster and promote the reputation of the Cayman Islands to the level of excellence deserved,” says Eric Crutchley, Director of CIFSA and past president of the Cayman Islands Bankers Association. “As we continue to see our financial industry, and consequently the jurisdiction, portrayed in a negative light by incorrect facts, it is imperative that we counter this portrayal by educating the general public, especially onshore and the international media, on the high standards of regulation and best practice which this jurisdiction upholds. To date we have been relatively quiet on the ‘good news’ and it is time for that approach to take on a more positive mode”.
CIFSA will liaise with other organisations involved in the upkeep of the jurisdiction’s reputation as a leading financial services centre to ensure that this new initiative is well integrated with those efforts.
A new website marks the first of a number of tasks that the CIFSA aims to achieve over the coming months. It is expected that the website will be fully launched by the end of February 2004.