The Jersey Financial Services Commission has, for the first time, launched an island-wide public awareness campaign to warn HNW investors about mis-selling.

The regulator has teamed up with the Personal Finance Society, a 36,000-strong trade body of British financial planners whose CEO is called Keith Richards, to reach its target audience. It considers unauthorised advisors and scammers to be a growing problem - indeed it thinks that the recent rise in sophisticated investment scams is dramatic - but it is also worried about some instances in which authorised financial advisors have helped HNWs and others make highly risky investments. Its intention is to provide islanders with the guidance they need to protect their money. Richards, for his part, believes that many investors feel under pressure to make their money work hard because today's interest rates are low and that this is making them more gullible when faced with promises of high returns.

As reported on Compliance Matters, the Jersey regulator began investigating the now-defunct Lumiere Wealth Ltd, an advisory firm that convinced its clients to invest in a Guernsey protected cell company called Providence Investment Funds, in September. The JFSC supported the actions of the Guernsey Financial Services Commission, particularly the appointment of administration managers to PIF. These managers are still looking at ways to recover monies and pass them back to the investors. Christopher Paul Byrne, the founder of Lumiere Wealth, was arrested in October in connection with the investigation. He has since been charged under various statutes for making false promises to persuade people to invest and for giving regulators misleading information while not surrendering the requisite documents.