The history, the development, and the future of global financial centers
This study focused primarily on major global financial centers. While there are approximately 17 global financial centers, there are only six major global financial centers. London, New York, Hong Kong, and Singapore are the most solid of these six major global financial centers. These four major global financial centers are likely to remain in that status for the foreseeable future. At present. London and New York are the most influential global financial centers. Hong Kong has a strong potential to join the most influential group. The emergence of additional major global financial centers is a strong possibility because regulatory and taxation actions by government may (a) weaken the positions of some of the major global financial centers, while (b) governments in some other global regions may target these threats as a strategy to promote their own global financial centers. There are now six major global financial centers. This number could easily increase by 50% over the coming decade.
A finance center, by definition, is an area in which a cluster of financial service providers has developed and has the capacity to serve the financial needs and demands of a variety of users of financial services.. Such an area may be a specific district within a city, such as the City of London, or it may be referred to as the city per se, such as New York (International Monetary Fund 9-11). The relative importance of the various financial centers is a function of the volume of financial transactions, the type of transactions involved, and the focus of the service area of a financial center (Yeandle, Horne, Danev, and Knapp 9-10). The focus on the service area is a criterion for classifying financial centers are local, national, regional (multi-country but not global), and global. Additionally, there are offshore financial centers that induce users of fina...