BVI Continues to Embrace Digital Innovation Simon Gray Highlights the Jurisdiction’s Business and Regulatory Environment in Recent Issue of World Commerce Review

25/01/2021

“BVI has a long track-record of promoting digital innovation and leveraging the full power of digital capability,” wrote Simon Gray, Head of Business Development and Marketing at BVI Finance in the article “Embracing Digital Innovation”, published in the December 2020 edition of World Commerce Review.

 

The senior financial services professional asserts that BVI continues to invest in “leading-edge” technology while describing BVI’s regulatory and business environment as supportive to digital innovation.

 

To this end, Mr. Gray highlights BVI’s investment in fintech regulation, such as the 2020 launch of the ‘Fintech Regulatory Sandbox’, which he writes is “a defined testing environment, designed to foster innovation and create a friendly ecosystem for digital startups to thrive”.

 

“Initiatives like [the fintech sandbox] are helping to stimulate innovation and leverage technology in ways that improve business processes. Going forward this will be an important strategy to help kickstart recovery and ensure long term economic growth.”

 

In the four-page article, the BVI Finance manager describes BVI’s digital products as “agile”, “sophisticated”, and “cost efficient”, and highlights one such product, the BVI Incubator Fund, as “well-suited for digital asset start-ups”.

 

Approved in 2015, the Incubator Fund is designed for start-up managers and those managing funds for small groups of closely-connected investors, not in excess of 20; and for a maximum investment of $20M in net assets. There is also no requirement to appoint local directors.

 

“BVI’s progressive corporate law fosters international trade while ensuring compliance with global regulatory standards,” writes Mr. Gray, who also attributes compliance success to the Beneficial Ownership Secure Search System or BOSSs, an online database that contains information on companies incorporated in the jurisdiction.

 

“[BOSSs] has been lauded by prominent law enforcement authorities like the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) and was integral to disclosing information that warranted the UK’s first Unexplained Wealth Order, obtained by the NCA in 2018,” the article states.

 

In addressing COVID-19 and technology’s recent impact on the industry, the business development manager said, “The pace of technological change, which has only been accelerated by the pandemic, is one of the most creative forces shaping today’s financial services ecosystem.”

 

Mr. Gray opines, “The ability to embrace digital innovation will be crucial to a sustainable, post-pandemic economic recovery.”

 

To read the full article, go to www.worldcommercerview.com or use this direct link: https://www.worldcommercereview.com/publications/article_pdf/1936