Several Island firms, including Jersey Telecom and Itex, are this year investing several million pounds in new facilities to host back-up data for international firms and provide temporary office space, should disaster strike.
Currently Jersey provides a safe haven for financial services and e-commerce companies which need to protect their assets against both natural and man-made disasters.
For example, following the Cayman hurricane at the end of last year Island firms with Cayman clients were called on to ‘invoke’ their business continuity plans so that business could function as usual, but from Jersey.
Now Chris Evans, the managing director of Foreshore datacentre in Queen’s Road, believes there are significant opportunities for expansion in the e-gaming sector, particularly since the States agreed in March to draft a law allowing online gambling.
Currently over 70 countries offer some form of internet gaming licence for prospective casino, bingo, poker or sportsbook operators.
Already the Isle of Man and Alderney have established names for themselves as e-gaming centres, along with Gibraltar.
What Mr Evans has in mind, at least initially, is the hosting of back-up data for companies who need to protect their assets, should disaster strike.
But in order to provide services for e-gaming business there has to be regulation that would come into effect if, say, a Gibraltar company needed to invoke a disaster recovery plan in Jersey.
