February 5, 2015

What is an “international financial centre” (IFC)?

An early 2007 report, entitled “Sustaining New York’s and the US’ Global Financial Services Leadership”, prepared by McKinsey & Company noted in the Executive Summary that while it “considers a broad definition of financial services – including retail and corporate banking, securities, and insurance – it focuses primarily on US competitiveness in the securities and investment banking sectors, where competition among global financial centers is most intense”. The US has a very large economy and much of New York’s huge amount of financial services activity will relate to that economy. However, the above quote from McKinsey implies that there are certain areas (eg securities and investment banking) where activity may be more or less than what one would expect given […]