There’s a question worth asking of any international finance centre that wants to work with South African business: what is it actually there for? 

At Finance Isle of Man, we made a deliberate choice a couple of years ago to treat South Africa as one of our priority markets. That wasn’t a marketing decision. It was a recognition that there’s a substantial, sophisticated South African business community that needs international structuring support — and that a small, well-regulated jurisdiction like ours is well placed to provide it, provided we’re clear-eyed about what “well placed” should mean. 

It should not mean helping businesses leave South Africa. It should mean helping South African businesses grow from South Africa, outward. 

That distinction matters more than it might sound. The companies we want to work with are the ones that want to stay rooted in South Africa — build their teams there, keep their headquarters there — but need a credible international platform alongside that: somewhere to hold and protect capital, bring in foreign investment, or structure cross-border activity properly. That’s what our partnerships on the ground are built around: not a generic pitch about tax neutrality, but a genuine collaboration connecting South African entrepreneurs with structuring, fiduciary and wealth management expertise, in service of what they’re already building. 

We think this is also the right measure of whether the work is worthwhile. If a South African business works with the Isle of Man and ends up more profitable, employing more people, and paying more tax at home — that’s success. A jurisdiction that helps a growing business access capital and structure itself properly, while it keeps creating jobs and paying tax in South Africa, is doing something genuinely useful. One that just helps money disappear is not, and gives the rest of us a bad name. 

There’s a cultural fit underneath this too. South Africa is the economic powerhouse of the continent, built by people who back themselves and build things from scratch. The Isle of Man is a much smaller place, but shares that instinct — self-governing, slightly stubborn, used to building what we need rather than waiting for someone else to build it for us. It’s part of why the relationships we’ve built in South Africa — through the Open Letter Network, Lekker Network and the Africa Scotland Business Network (ASBN), amongst others — have felt like genuine partnerships rather than transactions. The Chamber is a big part of why that’s possible at all — it’s the institution doing the quiet work of putting the right people in the same room, which is where relationships like ours actually start. 

We’re realistic about scale. The Isle of Man isn’t going to be the biggest international finance centre South African business works with, and we’re not trying to compete on volume. What we can offer is responsiveness, continuity, and a level of personal engagement that’s harder to find at larger, more anonymous centres. When we say we’ll show up, we mean it — and we intend to keep showing up. 

Paul Blake is Head of Banking & Fiduciaries at Finance Isle of Man.