page_title: Financial centre
section_title: Major IMF RFCs
hierarchical_section_title: Financial centre / Examples / Major IMF RFCs
caption_attribution_description: English: Sydney CBD from Sydney Tower Observation Deck
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: In some lists, RFCs such as Paris, Frankfurt, Chicago, and Shanghai appear as IFCs, however, they do not appear in all lists.  They are certainly major RFCs.
  Chicago. The Illinois city has the "world’s largest [exchange-traded] derivatives market" since the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade merged in 2007, under the CME Group.
  Dubai. The second largest emirate in the United Arab Emirates is a growing centre for finance in the Middle East, including for Islamic finance. Its emergence as a financial centre is relatively recent, although commercial banking activity in the UAE became established in the second half of the 20th century (the first commercial bank in Dubai was British Bank of the Middle East in 1946, and the first domestic commercial bank was the National Bank of Dubai established in 1963).
  Frankfurt. Frankfurt attracts many foreign banks which maintain offices in the city. It is the seat of Deutsche Börse, one of the leading stock exchanges and derivatives markets operators, and the European Central Bank, which sets the monetary policy for the single European currency, the euro; in addition, in 2014 the European Central Bank took over responsibility for banking supervision for the 18 countries which form the Eurozone. It is also the seat of Deutsche Bundesbank, the German central bank, as well as of EIOPA, the EU's supervisory authority for insurances and occupational pension systems.
  Frankfurt has been the financial centre of Germany since the second half of the 20th century as it was before the mid-19th century. Berlin held the position during the intervening period, focusing on lending to European countries while London focused on lending to the Americas and Asia.
  Madrid. Madrid is the headquarters to the Spanish company Bolsas y Mercados Españoles, which owns the four stock exchanges in Spain, the largest being the Bolsa de Madrid. Trading of equities, derivatives and fixed income securities are linked through the Madrid-based electronic Spanish Stock Market Interconnection System (SIBE), handling more than 90% of all financial transactions. Madrid ranks fourth in European equities market capitalisation, and Madrid's stock exchange is second in terms of number of listed companies, just behind New York Stock Exchange (NYSE plus NASDAQ). As a financial centre, Madrid has extensive links with Latin America and acts as a gateway for many Latin American financial firms to access the EU banking and financial markets.
  Milan. Italy's main centre of banking and finance. It hosts the Borsa Italiana stock exchange, one of the larger stock exchanges in Europe, which is now part of the London Stock Exchange Group.
  Paris. Alongside equity trading on the Paris Stock Exchange, there is futures and options trading, insurance, corporate banking and asset management taking place in Paris. The city is home to the Banque de France and the European Securities and Markets Authority. Paris has been a major financial centre since the 19th century. The European Banking Authority is also moving to Paris in March 2019 following Brexit.
  Seoul. South Korea's capital has developed significantly as a financial centre since the late-2000s recession. In 2009, Seoul ranked 53rd among global financial centres; by 2012, Seoul had risen to number 9. Seoul has continued to build office space with the completion of the International Financial Center Seoul in 2013. It ranked 7th in the 2015 Global Financial Centres Index, recording the highest growth in rating among the top ten cities.
  Shanghai. Official efforts have been directed to making Pudong a financial leader by 2010. Efforts during the 1990s were mixed, but in the early 21st century, Shanghai gained ground. Factors such as a "protective banking sector" and a "highly restricted capital market" have held the city back, according to one analysis in 2009 in China Daily. Shanghai has done well in terms of market capitalisation but it needs to "attract an army of money managers, lawyers, accountants, actuaries, brokers and other professionals, Chinese and foreign" to ena
caption: Sydney's northern CBD serves as the financial and banking hub of the city
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