Given recent events, it's hardly surprising that financial institutions are not noted for promoting their off-shore activities. With the exception of First Active that is. According to the Margin's informants on the Channel Islands, the former building society dipped into its corporate coffers the weekend before last to sponsor a Gaelic football competition in Guernsey where it has a deposits operation.

Eleven visiting teams from as far apart as Luxembourg, Holland and France joined the local 15 for the event with the participants largely comprising ex-pats, supplemented by non-nationals not dissuaded by the complexities of the hand pass and the high ball.

The gathering was recorded for posterity by local television, proving - for a change - that not all offshore publicity is bad publicity.