page_title: Financial centre
section_title: Major IMF IFCs
hierarchical_section_title: Financial centre / Examples / Major IMF IFCs
caption_attribution_description: This photo shows the Tokyo Stock Exchange, Japan.
context_page_description: A financial centre or financial center is defined by the IMF as encompassing: International Financial Centres, such as New York City, London, and Tokyo; Regional Financial Centres, such as Shanghai, Frankfurt, and Sydney; and Offshore Financial Centres, such as Cayman Islands, Dublin, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
  IFCs, and many RFCs, are full–service financial centres with direct access to large capital pools from banks, insurance companies, investment funds, and listed capital markets, and are major global cities. OFCs, and also some RFCs, tend to specialise in tax-driven services, such as corporate tax planning tools, tax–neutral vehicles, and shadow banking/securitization, and can include smaller locations, or city-states. The IMF notes an overlap between RFCs and OFCs. Since 2010, academics consider OFCs synonymous with tax havens.
context_section_description: New York, London, and Tokyo are in every list of major IFCs.  Some of the major RFCs (see below), such as Paris, Frankfurt, Chicago, and Shanghai appear as IFCs in some lists.
  New York City. Since the middle of the 20th century, New York City, represented by Wall Street in Manhattan's Financial District, has been described as a leading financial centre. Over the past few decades, with the rise of a multipolar world with new regional powers and global capitalism, numerous financial centres have challenged Wall Street, particularly London and several in Asia, which some analysts believe will be the focus of new worldwide growth. One source described New York as extending its lead as the world's centre of finance in September 2018; according to Reuters, the think-tank New Financial concluded the "raw" value of domestic and international financial activity like managing assets and issuing equity underscored the position of New York as the world's leading financial centre.
  New York City remains the largest centre for trading in public equity and debt capital markets, driven in part by the size and financial development of the U.S. economy. The NYSE and NASDAQ are the two largest stock exchanges in the world. New York also leads in hedge fund management; private equity; and the monetary volume of mergers and acquisitions. Several investment banks and investment managers headquartered in New York City are important participants in other financial centres. The New York Federal Reserve Bank, the largest within the Federal Reserve System, regulates financial institutions and implements U.S. monetary policy, which in turn influences the world's economy. The three major global credit rating agencies – Standard and Poor's, Moody's Investor Service, and Fitch Ratings – are headquartered or co–headquartered in New York City, with Fitch being co–headquartered in London.
  London. London has been a leading international financial centre since the 19th century, acting as a centre of lending and investment around the world. English contract law was adopted widely for international finance, with legal services provided in London. Financial institutions located there provided services internationally such as Lloyd's of London (founded 1686) for insurance and the Baltic Exchange (founded 1744) for shipping. During the 20th century London played an important role in the development of new financial products such as the Eurodollar and Eurobonds in the 1960s, international asset management and international equities trading in the 1980s, and derivatives in the 1990s.
  London continues to maintain a leading position as a financial centre in the 21st century, and maintains the largest trade surplus in financial services around the world. However, like New York, it faces new competitors including fast-rising eastern financial centres such as Hong Kong and Shanghai. London is the largest centre for derivatives markets, foreign exchange markets, money markets, issuance of international debt securities, international insurance, trading in gold, silver and base metals through the London bullion market and London Metal Exchange, and international bank lending. London benefits from its position between the Asia and U.S. time zones, and has benefited from its location within the European Union, though this may end following the outcome of the Brexit referendum of 2016 and the decision of the United Kingdom to leave the European Union. As well as the London Stock Exchange, the Bank of England, the second oldest central bank, is in London, although the European Banking Authority moved to Paris after Brexit.
  Tokyo. One report suggests that Japanese authorities are working on plans to transform Tokyo but have met with mixed success, noting that "initial drafts suggest that Japan's economic specialists are having trouble figuring out the secret of the Western financial centres' success." Efforts include more English-speaking restaurants and services and the building of many new office buildings in Tokyo, but more powerful stimuli such as lower taxes have been neg
caption: The Tokyo Stock Exchange, located in Nihonbashi-Kabutocho, Tokyo, Japan, is the largest stock exchange in Asia.[31]
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