BVI House Asia held a “Leading from the Front” seminar today for more than 25 financial services practitioners at the Central Plaza Building in Hong Kong.

The purpose of the two-hour seminar, led by Ms. Elise Donovan, Director of BVI House Asia, was to update practitioners on the BVI’s latest developments, and to discuss communications plans for 2016 that target and engage financial, business and government stakeholders.

Ms. Donovan began the discussion by providing an overview of recent positive developments for the BVI, such as the largely compliant OECD rating and the removal of the BVI from the French blacklist and implementation of BVI Forward initiatives.

A large part of the seminar was focused on what was described as an innovative and game-changing new bank initiative. Mr. Carson Wen and Mr. Chad Holm, architects of the Bank of Asia (BVI) Limited, which recently won license approval from the BVI Financial Services Commission, spoke about the structure and goals of the bank, and introduced members of their team present at the seminar.

Mr. Holm said the technology advanced BVI Bank is dedicated to filling a substantial market void to the benefit of the BVI and incorporated business companies. He said they expect the BVI Bank to “go live” in the third quarter of 2016.

Mr. Leon Wheatley, Asia Representative, BVI Financial Services Commission, gave a summary of new funds, trademark legislation, development of the arbitration centre and the offering of the Registry’s premium services.

Mr. Robert Grieves, Chairman of Hamilton Advisors, discussed BVI House Asia communications plans for 2016 that would benefit from practitioners’ active engagement and partnership.

Ms. Donovan closed the seminar by citing a number of new BVI initiatives, concluding that 2016 will be an exciting year for BVI House Asia as well as for practitioners who work with the BVI.