Jersey’s funds industry will be ‘all about change’ in 2026, according to members of the Jersey Funds Association (JFA) committee speaking at the annual Chairman’s Update event earlier this month 15 January).

At the event, Chairman Joel Hernandez – also a partner at law firm Mourant – reflected on what had been a positive 2025 for Jersey’s funds sector, with Assets Under Administration (AUA) growing by 5% over the year and more than 100 Jersey Private Funds (JPFs) being established.

He also pointed to the positive longer-term picture, with AUA in Jersey doubling over the past ten years and more than 1,600 private funds being authorised since the JPF regime was introduced in 2017.

However, Joel also pointed to the increasingly competitive market and the need for Jersey to adapt, while JFA Vice-Chair Dilmun Leach – also a partner at Walkers – provided insights into the key trends shaping the current cross-border funds landscape, including a global overall slowdown in fundraising and concentration of fundraising amongst larger managers.

The theme of change was echoed by Chris Griffin, Chair of the Legal and Technical sub-committee and partner at Carey Olsen, who outlined a number of initiatives the JFA was involved in aimed at enhancing Jersey’s funds ecosystem, while Jeffrey Parongan – a Director at KPMG Crown Dependencies - provided an insight into the JFA’s Education and Training programme for the year ahead.

Commenting on the focus on evolution and innovation in Jersey’s funds ecosystem, Joel said:

“We are operating in a competitive and complex marketplace and as a jurisdiction we need to shift our focus to selling solutions to the challenges faced by investors and managers, by focusing on what matters to them. Speed to market, being cost-effective, regulatory choice and simplicity – these are all of critical importance and our focus at the JFA is to ensure that, by working closely with the Government of Jersey, the JFSC and Jersey Finance, we are making significant changes to deliver in those areas.”

Reflecting on market trends, Dilmun said: “It’s important to understand where global capital is coming from and there’s no doubt, the picture is becoming more complex. The industry is now less about blind pooled funds, and more about tailored investment, corporate structuring, private capital, tokenisation and digital assets. This should actually suit Jersey very well, given our range of fund and corporate regimes we can offer, in particular in the secondaries, emerging and first -time manager markets. There are more companies on our register than ever before, for example. But we need to continue to shift the dial in these areas.”

Joel added: “The reality is that funds are raising less. Our challenge is to engineer a position where Jersey can support funds that are active – and there are already a whole raft of initiatives under way to support that. The changes to the JPF regime in 2025, for instance, were part of this evolution and have already resulted in a spike in interest in our private funds capabilities.

“Elsewhere, we are also looking at changes relating to AIFMD II, innovation through the concept of Jersey Cellular Partnerships, streamlining our regulatory framework to make it simpler, and serving the needs of the full spectrum of investors, including the sophisticated retail segment. As a result, we should be in no doubt – 2026 will be a year of significant change for Jersey’s funds industry.”