The Commercial Registry in Anguilla, known throughout the world for its famed Acorn company registration system, is proving to be a viable operation on the island. Unknown to the wider community, it is pumping over ten million dollars into the Government’s Treasury each year.
This was revealed by Mr. Lanston Connor, Registrar of Commercial Activities, in an interview with The Anguillian. “The Commercial Registry has been holding its own for the past seven or eight years during this whole depression,” he told the newspaper. “We have been earning constantly over ten million dollars a year for the Government of Anguilla. While this is small compared with the other sectors of tourism and customs, there is room for potential growth in financial services.
“We had also been plagued in the last ten years by the administrations of the United States and the UK by [imposing] higher regulatory standards which have caused a reshuffling of business in the world’s financial centres. We are not necessarily now in a competitive position, but we offer a quality product… and we are working towards some new products. We are even trying to expand the Commercial Registry to include private yachts and aircraft operations to stimulate the Government’s coffers.”
Mr. Connor said Anguilla was now the fifth largest jurisdiction for captive insurance in the world. It is a system in offshore financial centres whereby companies can choose to insure themselves rather than going to a private insurance company thus being afforded various benefits including avoidance of risks. He explained that Anguilla’s Commercial Registry largely fetches its over ten million dollars a year from a combination of trademarks, patents, and companies and that Anguilla’s biggest market in Asia is Taiwan. He predicted that with the emergence of the new Republican Government some of the onerous financial services legislation and restrictions, including FACTA, which stemmed from the United States, might eventually be relaxed or repealed giving new life to the offshore business in Anguilla and other jurisdictions.
Mr. Connor went on: “We are looking to increase our [registration] of companies world-wide. We currently offer international banks anywhere in the world free access to Acorn so we are operating on a level of transparency more than any other jurisdiction in the world. Imagine you can form a company in Anguilla electronically within five minutes, walk over to a bank that has access to Acorn literally with nothing in your hand and verify your company name and status at the Anguilla Registry. That bank can come straight to the Registry, 24 hours a day, and verify the status of your company. This increases our level of efficiency.
“The Commercial Registry is definitely viable. It is an area where the Government has not focussed, and put its spotlight, on within the last fifteen to twenty years in terms of budgetary support; but there is a lot of potential in financial services. It has the least impact on the environment or health services. So it is a lot better than tourism. We are selling paper. That is what we are doing, and it is a viable operation.”
The money-making Commercial Registry works in collaboration with such other organisations as Anguilla Finance which does the marketing of the island as an offshore jurisdiction, and the Financial Services Commission which handles regulatory matters. So while the three entities may consult and cooperate with each other, their functions are generally both separate and diverse.
