BVI Finance CEO: ‘We create opportunities so that businesses can thrive’

Elise Donovan explains why the British Virgin Islands has been such a successful international business and finance centre for 40 years

April 17, 2023
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Transcript

Beyond Globalisation: The British Virgin Islands’ contribution to global prosperity in an uncertain world is the new report published in April 2023 by Pragmatix Advisory for BVI Finance. In the third part of our interview with BVI Finance CEO Elise Donovan she discusses the key ingredients to the British Virgin Islands’ success over the last 40 years, since the BVI Business Company was first established; and how the leading international business and finance centre will continue innovating in response to the challenges posed by changing globalisation.

World Finance: Now, the British Virgin Islands has built its reputation as a leading international business and finance centre over the last 40 years; what have been the key ingredients to its success?

Elise Donovan: One of the most important things is the establishment of the BVI Business Company. We first established the BVI Business Company in 1984, and right now we have 375,000 BVI Business Companies all over the globe. So every corner of the globe you can find successful businesses using the BVI Business Company. And that has been critical to the BVI’s success.

Why do they use the BVI Business Company? Because it provides legal and commercial certainty, it’s tax neutral, in the sense that we don’t add an additional layer of tax. We also provide a sound legal and regulatory framework. We’ve established an international commercial court, as well as an arbitration centre, to help businesses navigate any conflicts or disputes that may arise.

And more importantly, the BVI is innovative and agile. We continue to create new legislation and new products and services. Right now the BVI has become a hub for digital assets, and so we are moving into that space. So we are agile, we are innovative, and we are also creating new opportunities for businesses across the world.

World Finance: Tell me more about that, because in this report you’re identifying different forecasts for globalisation. How is the BVI going to respond? How are you going to be agile and innovative in approaching these potential different futures for the world?

Elise Donovan: This is why this report was done – we look at what’s happening in the globe, and we determine how can we position ourselves? How can we adapt, how can we best change what we need to change, to ensure that we continue as a leading international business and finance centre.

One of the things that we’ve recently done is establish a virtual assets of service providers legislation. And this is to deal with what we’ve been seeing in terms of BVI becoming a hub for crypto currencies and digital assets. So we’ve responded by creating a regulatory framework that responds to that. And that’s what we do: we remain agile, we remain innovative, and we create opportunities so that businesses can thrive.

World Finance: Elise, thank you very much.

Elise Donovan: You’re welcome.