Insurance firm boss Mike Foy says he is ’positive’ for the future and believes that ’anecdotally’ people are more comfortable now with the island as a jurisdiction because of the way it has coped so far with the pandemic.

’We have put massive effort behind making sure that none of our customers actually even knew we were even working from home’ said Mr Foy.

The chief executive of Utmost Group Isle of Man Ltd added that he knew some of their competitors elsewhere had struggled to do that.

’So it created the perception that Isle of Man companies were more robust and the jurisdiction they were in had coped better . . . but can I put a commercial value on it? No I can’t.’

Mr Foy was answering a question posed by Treasury Minister Alfred Cannan who wanted to know how representatives of financial services companies saw the situation now and in the future.

Greg Ellison, chief executive of investment management company, Capital International, said they had an ’interesting experience’ because at the peak of the impact in the financial market, when markets were down nearly 30%, we had a lot of conversations with clients who were understandably concerned. But equally we have a trading and a dealing side of our business and volumes were up 400% for a couple of months compared to last year.

’So from a revenue perspective where we were losing out on lower asset levels, the revenues we got from the dealing side of our business more than compensated for that.

’What is going to remain a challenge is interest rates because the cash we hold and manage is not earning anything and that has had a significant impact on our business and other investment businesses.’

Graham Sheward, managing director of Sancus (IoM) Ltd, which describes itself as a ’niche asset backed, alternative lender’, said the low interest rates had had a ’positive impact’ for them.

’For us interest rates coming down to near zero was a fantastic opportunity because we don’t just lend off our own balance sheet when we lend for property finance.’

Mike Foy said he has more anxiety over ’Isle of Man plc’ than our broader market - ’that is no disrespect to Isle of Man plc, that is our massive vested interest. We need people to be here working, living and enjoying being here so we give the service to our customers. My anxiety will always be over the rude health of Isle of Man plc.’

Mr Sheward said that in ’our sector we are benefitting by being in the Isle of Man because of the way the company has been structured and the underlying liquidity stress in the UK.

’Our main competitors have stopped providing funding in the alternative funding sector.

’In the traditional high street finance sector they are pulling in their horns as well.

’We are benefitting from the liquidity stress in the UK’.

A question was raised about whether there was the opportunity, with the shortage of certain skills here in the island, that people could be employed from across the water.

Treasury Minister Alfred Cannan MHK said there were clearly risks but also there was the opportunity for the island to say that employers can have a secure business with far less risk of disruption by basing some or all of their business over here.

’That is going to have to be something we capitalise on.

’It’s going to be difficult to market the island in these conditions but certainly when things start to calm down a bit then you should be able to go out and say that not only has the island got the latest technology and great skills etc, but actually we are a safe place and it is proven that if there is a disruption we will get the business back up and running.’

Mr Sheward asked if there was a queue of investors, tourists, property buyers wanting to come here and raised the question of for instance, whether a health passport could be given for a family to come and live here in a cottage .

Mr Lamb said he had heard from estate agents that they were taking many calls from people in other jurisdictions that wanted to come and live here, many of these seeing the island as a ’second home’ and as a ’safe place to live’.

The roundtable heard that the recent sale of Bishopscourt, as reported in Business News, was a classic example of a ’virtual’ sale where the buyers, who are from America. have not even set foot in the property before deciding to buy.