Agility is Critical to the Fund Domicile of the Future

Conversations with funds lawyers, tax advisers and managers in the US in the past 12 months have been dominated by one overriding theme: the pace of change in the alternative investment space.

In fact, this was a theme explored in an Alternatives Watch report that Jersey Finance supported in 2025, which highlighted how, in a shifting market, fund advisors, intermediaries and service providers are empowering investors to access trillions of dollars in new assets.

The pace of change has certainly not relented since then – and as we look ahead, further evolution is on the cards in 2026. With US managers increasingly reviewing their operational models to ensure they are best positioned to navigate this shifting landscape, supporting these changes from a jurisdictional perspective is critical.

That has all placed a premium on jurisdictional agility.

There are a number of key trends that are likely to continue to shape the landscape in the year ahead, which domiciles will need to respond to.

First, the tokenisation of real-world assets. It’s been one of the main areas of discussion in recent months, in particular as regulators have sought to implement frameworks to support growth in this area – total tokenised market capitalisation is forecast to reach around US$2 trillion by 2030 according to McKinsey (2024).

The application of tokenisation is set to revolutionise access to alternatives, helping to break down barriers for investors and giving them improved liquidity, transparency and control over their allocations.

Jersey has a good track record in this area – in fact, the Jersey Financial Services Commission was one of the first regulators globally to publish guidance around virtual asst exchanges almost a decade ago. Since then, it has published further updated guidance around initial coin offerings and, in 2024, on the tokenisation of real-world assets.

The stablecoin market is also set for significant growth in the year ahead. Stablecoins have, of course, been around for more than a decade, but this past year has been a pivotal year in their evolution.

This trajectory looks set to be maintained, with stablecoins becoming a critical component in the infrastructure of the digital investment world – being used for crypto trading, as cross-border payment options, for asset tokenisation, and for moving money in and out of blockchain systems.

Then there is the ‘retailisation’ of the funds space, with asset managers seeking to broaden their investor bases in a challenging fundraising environment. As the Alternatives Watch study last year showed, private investors are finding growing appeal in the alternatives space, prompting managers to diversify away from a traditional institutional investor base and look to the broader high-net worth market.

According to PwC, for example, total global assets under management are expected to grow from US$139 trillion in 2024 to US$200 trillion by 2030, with private markets generating more than half of global asset-management revenues (PwC 2025 Global Asset & Wealth Management Report).

For fund domiciles, there are big considerations here, as managers and promoters place a greater emphasis on speed, cost-effectiveness, tax neutrality, service and regulatory choice. Delivering this will require significant agility – and it is our belief that Jersey can respond positively to that.

Jersey’s performance as a funds domicile paints a picture of long-term success – assets under administration and assets under management in Jersey have doubled over the past decade, with 90% of that value in the alternative assets space.

Jersey also provides good, cost-effective and rapid access to European investors. The number of alternative investment fund managers (AIFMs) marketing into the European Economic Area (EEA) investor zone using private placement through Jersey has grown by 25% over the past five years, with the number of funds they are marketing this way increasing over the same time frame by 35%. It’s an option that offers straightforward investor onboarding, in a flexible yet robust regulatory regime.

The ongoing success of the Jersey Private Fund (JPF) has played a significant part in this growth story too. Since the product’s launch in 2017, the number of authorised JPFs has grown steadily and has more than doubled over the past five years, making it the go-to structure for private capital. It’s a product that offers rapid approval – in as little as 24 hours – and, this year, it has been subject to a number of enhancements.

It’s a positive picture – but Jersey is focussed on continuing to nurture an agile ecosystem that is able to offer a full suite of efficient, cost-effective solutions, catering for a broad range of evolving investor strategies, from boutique through to big-ticket funds. Alongside the JPF, its unregulated product and Expert Funds Regime are also well-established options.

Jersey’s corporate structuring capabilities add further strength, as the appetite for managers to structure through special purpose vehicles (SPVs), co-investment vehicles and collateralised loan obligations (CLOs) continues to grow, and as tokenisation – treated as securitisation in Jersey – moves centre stage.

This structuring ecosystem is backed up further by intellectual capacity and genuine substance, including a dedicated workforce of more than 9,000 funds professionals, on the ground, supporting global alternatives strategies. They include 124 full-substance managers, as well as tax advisers, lawyers, auditors, administrators, promoters, investment houses and other ancillary providers.

Conscious of the need to offer compelling legal, tax and service infrastructure differentiators, Jersey’s funds industry, together with the Government of Jersey and the regulator, is focussed on enhancing the jurisdiction’s competitiveness even further in the months ahead.

This includes plans to evolve the proposition around tokenisation and digital assets further still, to make things simpler and clearer to market participants; there is a commitment to make it easier and quicker to onboard investors, without compromising the integrity and probity Jersey is known for; and this includes a programme of initiatives to further streamline Jersey’s regulatory environment to ensure it can meet the needs of managers – in particular those emerging and mid-market.

There’s no doubt that the global funds industry is currently in a period of significant change – and that change is prompting managers to review their options. The agility of fund domiciles to support that evolution through regulatory optionality, legal adaptability and a progressive fund administration infrastructure will be critical in 2026 – and that is right in Jersey’s sweet spot.

Sign up to our newsletter to get more insights like this, and updates on Jersey Finance events and research.

This article was first published on the US platform Alternatives Watch.