Bermuda’s Ministry of Finance and the Bermuda Monetary Authority, the jurisdiction’s defacto central bank, have created the Financial Policy Council to advise on financial and economic policy. 

The FPC is part of a strategic project started five years ago to strengthen the financial framework in Bermuda, a statement from the island said yesterday. 

“We are re-establishing Bermuda as a global leader in financial services and it is critical that existing customers and those considering doing business in Bermuda see us as a jurisdiction where safety, soundness and fiscal credibility have top priority,” Jeremy Cox, CEO of the Bermuda Monetary Authority, said.

Members of the council will include: Bob Richards, Bermuda’s finance minister (chair); former BoE deputy governor Sir Andrew Large (deputy chair); Cox, and Sir Courtney Blackman and Michael Butt. 

Sir Andrew, as well as being a former deputy governor of the Bank of England, is an advisor to central banks and governments. Sir Courtney is the former governor of the Central Bank of Barbados and ambassador for Barbados to the US.  Butt previously worked in the Bermuda-based global insurance industry, and is currently chairman of the board of AXIS Capital Holdings.

Bermuda’s government and its monetary authority agreed to create the council in September.

Among recent developments in Bermuda, which is a British Overseas Territory, HSBC has agreed to sell its private banking operations in the jurisdiction to Butterfield, a banking group.