CONFERENCE ON INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL CENTRES

THE NEW FORCES IN WORLD BANKING: ACHIEVING SUSTAINABLE GROWTH 2012-2020

15 September 2011, DZ Privatbank, Luxembourg

As part of the Luxembourg Monetary and Finance Week

Attendance is free.

Main features of conference

The conference will be free-of-charge for invited guests, with an audience of 100 expected to attend. The gathering will focus on perspectives for key specialised areas such as private banking, asset management, custody and trusts, and treasury /wholesale operations for institutional and corporate customers.

A centrepiece of the Conference will be a detailed publication International Financial Centres 2020 produced by OMFIF and Lafferty Group that will be sponsored by DZ Bank and other non-competitor organisations with an interest in development of world-wide centres of excellence in financial services. The publication will highlight the relevance of worldwide cooperative banking and financial groupings for strengthening international economic and financial instability in the interests of all categories of stakeholders.

Conference background

There is general recognition that the world has moved into a new stage of international financial competition in which crossborder financial centres can no longer thrive, as sometimes in the past, on a combination of lax regulation, tax benefits and banking secrecy.

Instead, in the new environment following the tightening of international capital requirements and a crackdown on regulatory arbitrage, international financial centres have to distinguish themselves in other ways. In essence, they have to bring together many different elements of competitive prowess in an effective professional “ecosystem” to create an attractive environment for profitable and dynamic financial activities.

Competition among a cluster of important international financial centres – including and beyond the premier hubs of London, New York and Tokyo – is intensifying under the impact of diverse influences on world banking and financial markets. A wide variety of international centres is now active on the global finance and banking scene as individual countries recognise the key economic benefits, for their regions and beyond, of active, well-supervised and optimally-functioning banking and financial centres.

The main factors behind these changes are:

• A general tightening of regulatory and supervisory constraints around the world in reaction to the trans-Atlantic financial crisis
• A rapid build-up of world-wide assets under management caused by fast diversifying trade and investment
• An eastwards shift in global economic power from Europe and the US towards Asia, the Middle East and Africa
• A crackdown on illicit activities such as money-laundering and fraud, requiring the highest standards in regulation
• A search for high-value financial services from a growing class of sophisticated international private investors
• Increased inter-connectedness of financial centres fed by continual advances in telecommunications and computing power

The conference analyses the characteristics required from modern specialised financial centres around the world in terms of quality of services, density and spread of financial expertise, regulatory security, IT infrastructure and lifestyle & facilities / general ambience.

Conference is supported by RusCham.