Financial Services (Jersey) Law 1998
Regulated businesses
The Jersey Financial Services Commission regulates defined classes of financial service business. If your activity falls into one of them you need authorisation in addition to a business licence. If it does not, you need no JFSC authorisation, though some sectors are still supervised by it for anti-money-laundering purposes. Most trading businesses fall well outside the perimeter.
The perimeter
Jersey is an international finance centre, which leads incoming businesses to assume that regulation touches everything. It does not.
The Jersey Financial Services Commission regulates defined classes of activity. Article 6 of the Financial Services (Jersey) Law 1998 sets out six: investment business, trust company business, fund services business, money service business, general insurance mediation and AIF services business. Banking, insurance and certain funds activity are regulated under their own legislation.
If what you do is not in one of those classes, you do not need JFSC authorisation. A design agency, a manufacturer, a software business, a consultancy, a shop, a restaurant — none of these are regulated financial service businesses, and all of them still need a business licence, administered by the Business Hub.
Outside the perimeter is not quite the same as never meeting the JFSC. Jersey companies are incorporated through its registry, and it supervises a number of non-financial sectors for anti-money-laundering purposes — accountancy, lawyers, estate agents and high value dealers among them. If your business is in one of those, expect the JFSC to supervise your anti-money-laundering controls even though you need no authorisation.
Why the distinction matters commercially
Two reasons.
Time and cost. Authorisation is a substantial process. It assesses the people involved as fit and proper, requires a compliance framework, and expects real substance in Jersey. It runs in quarters. A business licence does not.
Being wrong is serious. Carrying on a regulated activity without authorisation is a criminal offence under Article 7 of the 1998 Law, with a maximum of seven years’ imprisonment or a fine. It is not an administrative oversight. Nobody should be working out their own perimeter position from a website — including this one.
Where the line is easy to cross accidentally
Businesses that were never intended to be regulated drift towards the perimeter in recognisable ways: introducing clients to investment opportunities, holding client money, administering structures for others, arranging insurance as an adjunct to something else.
If any part of your model involves other people’s money, other people’s investments, or acting for others in relation to structures, get the perimeter assessed by a Jersey advocate before you build the business around it.
Where we sit
We are not a regulated financial service business, and our work is deliberately kept outside the perimeter. We coordinate relocations: we do not advise on investments, arrange deals in investments, act as or administer trusts, or provide fund services. When a client needs any of that, we refer it to regulated people and stay in our lane.
Our regulatory position in full sets out both what we do and what we are not permitted to do — the same distinction we would want any adviser to make plainly before we engaged them.