Bermuda: Poised for Economic Recovery
Oyster Consulting provides comprehensive and cost-effective compliance and operational consulting to the financial services industry. Our team of industry professionals brings highly-integrated knowledge and deep functional expertise, designed to help our clients protect and grow their business. We offer practical solutions, creating much-needed simplicity in a complex environment.
Headquartered in Richmond, Virginia, Oyster comprises a team of over 50 industry professionals and offers a unique service to our clients through our ability to combine expertise in Bermuda, the US and Europe.
Bermuda, as a jurisdiction, is constantly looking for ways to improve and enhance its product offerings across all industry sectors. This has been particularly evident in the asset management arena, where we have seen significant growth and a renewed interest in domiciling funds on the island. This success has been due largely to extensive collaboration between the asset management sector, the Bermuda Development Agency (“BDA”) and our Government and Regulator, the Bermuda Monetary Authority (“BMA”).
Our Insurance-linked Securities (“ILS”) sector continues to grow and thrive and by the end of 2014, Bermuda represented 57% of the total global ILS sector.
Ongoing collaboration between all industry sectors, the BDA, Government and the BMA are key to sustaining strong economic growth over the coming years. Ensuring firms overseas understand that Bermuda is a first class place to do business encourages new companies to come to the island and hosting key conferences on the island also allows us to showcase Bermuda and all that we can provide in terms of infrastructure, sophistication and intellectual capital.
Oyster opened for business in March of 2012. Starting a new company at that time definitely presented a number of stern challenges: however, for me this also presented a huge opportunity to build something from the ground up and to provide a unique service to companies looking for a compliance partner to help them focus on growing their business.
My advice to any business facing similar challenges would be to listen to your clients, really work to understand their needs and adapt to meet those needs. We make sure that we customise our projects and engagements in ways that best meet our clients’ requirements.
Oyster has grown significantly since its inception and our growth is accelerating. Our biggest challenge is to make sure new businesses understand how we can help them start, run, grow and protect their organisation and we are keenly focused on keeping our service levels as high as possible as we continue to grow and develop our own business.
In any company, it is important to provide a high standard of service on time and within budget. In the consultancy field, this is particularly critical because, at the end of the day, the firm’s reputation is its most important asset. This is just one of the many reasons why, at Oyster, we believe in creating deep, meaningful relationships with our clients and why we approach every single engagement with the same high standards of product delivery and client satisfaction. All of our projects and engagements are carefully tailored to ensure that we deliver exactly what the client is looking for and we endeavour to provide ongoing compliance support. Of course, there is also always the option to change the level of support as the relationship progresses.
In any company, the tone from the top drives the culture. We understand that we must bring value to our clients and that service standards are a key part of that process. The majority of Oyster’s senior management team bring with them decades of industry experience, having served as counsel and in many senior level positions within the financial services sector.
Regular communications and weekly meetings allow everyone to stay connected wherever they are in the world and keep up to date with the ever-changing regulatory environment. Staying ahead of all regulatory developments allows us to ensure that our clients benefit from our knowledge and expertise and are able to better manage their own business.
Oyster was founded on the belief that experienced industry practitioners add more value than career consultants and we also believe that the best financial services organisations make decisions with the input of the strategic leaders, sales, operations, trading, technology, finance, compliance, risk and legal groups. Oyster consultants have worked as leaders in these groups and bring highly integrated industry knowledge and in-depth expertise. You may only work with one consultant, but you get access to all of Oyster’s resources when you work with us.
Oyster continues to build and grow and we are always looking for experienced and talented individuals to join our team. Due to the constantly evolving regulatory environment, companies in Bermuda often struggle to keep up with new legislation and how it might impact their operations. Oyster provides the support that they need to be able to focus on growing their business free from these concerns.