A Jersey-based equivalent of a dating agency that brings together financial service providers with clients such as family offices and lawyers has been recently launched to tap in to an estimated $100 billion market.

Jersey AVS Corporate Services – or JCS – calls itself an “independent financial services introductions agency”; its current staff of five people work around the world, mainly the EMEA region, attract interest in Jersey’s services from individuals, funds, lawyers and investment firms.

The firm was founded by Vernon Breese and Swithun Mason about a month ago. Breese has worked at Standard Bank, the Jersey Financial Services Commission and Maples and Calder. Mason has worked at MARS Capital (joining in August 2010 as interim chief financial officer) and is a qualified chartered accountant with spells at Coopers and Lybrand, Standard Bank and a three-year stint away from the industry working with the International Rescue Committee, a US organisation.

Breese recently set out his rationale for forming the business in a short interview with WealthBriefing.

Why did you set it up? What sort of market research did you do for this?

“We identified a clear gap in the market for a small team with our unique set of skills and characteristics to match the ideal service providers with the needs of specific client transactions, funds or finance structures. Those skills and attributes are in regulation, corporate governance, compliance and sales, and the languages and cultural awareness which come of living and travelling widely, between us, for decades.  Market research was carried out by asking prospective clients a number of questions concerning their day to day operations - a theme emerged revealing that the most troublesome areas were maintaining a productive pipeline of work, managing client relationships and developing a healthy database of relevant prospects to nurture.”

How large is the potential/actual market for your services?

“JCS is an international business, however in terms of jurisdictional coverage we focus on Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the CIS.  In AuM the market is in excess of $100 billion per annum. What we can actually bring into Jersey in our first year will be a matter for the record in 11 months’ time.”

What sort of targets do you have in terms of business development and growth?

“In our first month JCS generated leads amounting to £575 million in AuM terms. The first quarter target is £1 billion and year end £6 billion.

In which parts of the world/sectors do you see strongest demand/challenges?

“Demand continues to be evident amongst the BRIC territories but it is also hotly contested. JCS focuses on the emerging markets of Africa, the Middle East and the wider CIS. There are interesting opportunities across Western Europe too, particularly in Turkey and the Balkan countries.”

“The challenges here are seeking out the right people to do business with. The maintenance of corporate governance standards and transparency makes considerable demands on our time and resources but we value our robust take on procedures and regulatory regime. These are the tools which will, within five years, help make JCS the leading source of new business into the island.”

What are the main problems or challenges that your firm looks to wrestle with over the next year or so? Regulations, competitive threats?

“Aside from another financial disaster or the collapse of the EU, our biggest threat is regulatory creep. The industry suffers the consequences of increased regulatory demands almost weekly these days and from many quarters.”

“Unfortunately, increased regulation is often costly and these costs are ultimately passed on to consumers and they will vote with their feet. We need to regulate in a more sophisticated way because piling on the rules just doesn’t work. People get lost in the quagmire of policies, codes and laws. We need to rationalise what has become a cumbersome and ineffective beast and focus on proactive and pragmatic regulation.”

“The FSA Handbook whose Glossary alone is 372 pages long is evidence enough that we have made a difficult task more complicated.”