Business deposits survey

26 January 2010

Owners of small and medium sized business are being asked to take part in a survey into business deposits which will allow the Economic Development Department to consider whether they could be included in the Depositors’ Compensation Scheme (DCS).

EDD has extended the deadline for responses to Friday 29 January to encourage more businesses to give their views in order to produce a proper statistical analysis.

The DCS came into force in November 2009, providing protection of up to £50,000 per person per Jersey banking group.

At present, only deposits held by individuals and charities are protected under the scheme. The survey results will help EDD to consider whether protection under the DCS could be extended to business deposits in the future. It is in the interests of the island’s businesses that the survey is as representative as possible.

The Minister for Economic Development, Senator Alan Maclean said: “We are grateful to all the businesses who have taken the time to complete the survey so far. In order to ensure that we are getting a fair cross-section of responses, I would ask all those businesses that have been selected but have not yet had the chance to complete the survey, to do so and to return it to us by 29 January.”

A thousand businesses were chosen at random for the survey. Businesses are being urged to complete the survey and return it in the pre-paid envelope provided.

The survey should take less than 10 minutes to fill in. If participants are not able to provide all of the information requested, they should fill in what information they can, providing estimates if necessary.

All responses will be treated in the strictest confidence and will only be used to produce total numbers. Identifiable individual information will not be passed to any other States Department.