Redundancies at Butterfield due to ‘group restructuring’

The company refused to disclose how many jobs in total had been affected, however the Guernsey Press understands it could be about 30.

In a statement, a Butterfield spokeswoman said that some roles had regrettably been impacted as part of a group restructure to position itself for the future.

‘Butterfield regularly evaluates its operations, capital levels and efficiency according to market conditions and business needs,’ she said.

‘We continue to operate in all of the jurisdictions we call home and there are no changes to the products and services we offer clients.’

Butterfield was founded as Bermuda’s first bank in 1858. It started operating in Guernsey in 1973.

In 2014 it acquired Legis Group’s Guernsey-based trust and corporate services business, then in 2019 it took on ABN AMRO’s Channel Islands operation, with its 130 staff.

Then in 2021, it closed its Mauritius banking unit and transferred its operations to Guernsey, creating 16 jobs.

Butterfield has nearly 50 staff listed on its Meet the Team part of the Guernsey website, which includes staff working on asset management, personal banking and mortgages.

In 2021 the bank announced that it was looking to offer a local banking service, with mortgages and credit cards.

A spokeswoman for promotional body Guernsey Finance said that the local financial services industry was currently in great shape, highlighting a survey of business leaders it had conducted earlier this year in which 87% of respondents said they would be either maintaining or increasing staff levels.

Some 40% of respondents to the survey noted that they expected staff levels to increase by more than 10% over the next five years, while two-thirds of respondents said that they were confident in the future of Guernsey’s financial services sector.

More than 90% of respondents said their business development was healthy or very healthy, with 85% reporting their profit levels as healthy or very healthy relative to the previous year.