The Isle of Man plans to turn itself in IT disaster
recovery site for businesses in off-shore financial centres
worldwide.
The Isle of Man government has passed legislation that will
allow firms in offshore tax havens to transfer their IT operations
to the Isle in an emergency, without losing any of their offshore
benefits.
The island’s government is negotiating memoranda of
understanding with a range of offshore locations.
They will allow firms that relocate their IT systems to the Isle
of Man in an emergency to operate under the same regulations as
their home-offshore centre.
Offshore locations such as the Turks and Caicos, Bermuda, and
the Channel Islands, offer businesses generous tax breaks and
higher levels of business confidentiality that are attractive to
financial firms.
Tim Craine, director of e-business said that the Isle of Man,
would prove attractive to businesses as a back-up centre because of
its secure power supplies, low-cost telecoms links, and security
from natural disasters and terrorist attacks.
The Isle of Man government also offers grants to assist
businesses with the cost of buying IT systems.
The island has had strong interest from financial firms based in
the Caribbean, where hurricane risks make disaster recovery
planning essential, said Craine.
It has three disaster recovery centres, which manage back-up
servers for clients.
Meanwhile, the Isle of Man has taken action to secure sports
betting sites against criminal denial of service attacks. It has
installed systems to filter out denial of service attacks from the
telephone network, while allowing other traffic to continue.