A Centre for International Finance and Regulation (CIFR) funded study, co-authored by Dr Eric Knight from The University of Sydney and Professor Dariusz Wójcik from the University of Oxford, released today, ranks major international finance centres according to size.
From Robin Christie at FINSIA:
To compile its list of the top 10 international financial centres by cross-border fees, the study totalled each city’s fees over the 14-year period between 2000 and 2014 in US dollars. The top 10 are listed as follows:
- London: $130,943 million
- New York: $125,242 million
- Zurich: $100,430 million
- Frankfurt: $53,277 million
- Paris: $40,482 million
- Toronto: $32,967 million
- Tokyo: $22,522 million
- Amsterdam: $17,948 million
- Hong Kong: $9,996 million
- Sydney: $5,126 million
One paragraph that caused me to hesitate, though was:
“Unsurprisingly we found that the size of a city’s population is an important determinant of international finance centres, so all things being equal, cities that have the ability to grow their population will outperform,” said Knight.
They may have the cart before the horse here. Success as a financial centre may encourage population growth. Not the other way round. Else the list would include Shanghai, New Delhi, Karachi, Moscow, Lagos, Istanbul and Sao Paulo.