Virgin Islands trust firms incorporated 630 fewer companies in 2012 compared to 2011, signaling a flat year for incorporations growth for the financial services sector, recently released statistics indicate.
According to the Financial Services Commission, trust firms formed 64,099 companies last year, about a tenth of a percentage point decrease from 2011’s 64,729 companies.
According to FSC incorporation statistics from the last six years, 2011 was the busiest year since 2007, when 77,022 companies were registered in the territory.
Additionally, fund registration over the past four years has dropped steadily, statistics show. In 2009 there were nearly 3,000 active mutual funds registered in the VI: 1,905 professional, 816 private and 216 public funds. By the end of last year there were a little over 2,300 funds registered in the territory: 1,590 professional, 577 private, and 151 public.
The FSC issued six new licences for investment businesses during Q4 of 2012, a decrease from 13 in 2011. But the number of VI-registered companies regulated as investment businesses has grown to 526 since the Securities and Investment Business Act was passed by the House of Assembly in April 2010.
The statistics also show that the territory’s six banks maintain a healthy profit margin: 55.59 percent in Q4 2012, though this is down more than five percent from Q4 2010. Collectively, banks’ net income also declined from $36.3 million during Q4 2010 to $31.7 million in Q4 2012.
At the same time, non-performing loans as a percent of total loans increased from 2.23 in Q4 2010 to 4.6 percent most recently.
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