Opinions
The articles published here reflect the views of the respective authors and not necessarily those of the WAIFC.
Europe’s Next Act: Building Financial Infrastructure for a New Era
Europe stands at a crossroads. Yet we risk squandering this advantage through complacency and fragmentation. The time to act is now.
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The Role of the ISSB in Frankfurt as a Co-Shaper of Global Rules
The ISSB anchors Frankfurt in the competition for global sustainability standards. What remains decisive is how closely Europe’s rules align and how this relieves the burden on companies.
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Greening Jersey Passes 50-Participant Milestone and Confirms Fifth Site
Passing the milestone of 50 participating firms is a significant achievement and a strong reflection of the finance industry’s continued commitment to Greening Jersey.
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Central Bankers’ 2026 Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium
At the end of August, the world’s central bank leaders gathered in the Rocky Mountains as guests of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. The Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium, held this year from 27 to 29 August and hosted by Kansas City Fed…
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Talent is the real foundation of a financial centre
A financial centre is measured less by its skyline than by the people it attracts, develops and keeps, writes Alya Al Zarouni of DIFC.
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Luxembourg For Green Finance
Luxembourg for Finance has long taken a leadership role in the work of promoting green finance. Its professionals did not need the summer of 2026 to remind them of the task at hand.
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The BIS 2026 Economic Report
This opinion is not only for the bankers: financial services professionals are almost obsessive “readers of tea leaves” when it comes to central bank statements. The cost and value of money are the foundations of this industry. Helpfully, in late June every…
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Carbon Transition Finance in Stuttgart
Stuttgart has been home to one of the world’s centers of automobile manufacturing for well over a century, and many other heavy industries large and small spread across Baden-Wurttemberg.
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Where Is the Uncertain Regulatory Perimeter?
When I am the party advancing funds, am I in a relatively well-regulated environment? Where in financial services does financial oversight end? How much is oversight worth anyway?
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Compliance as competitive advantage
Last month, the Bahamas Financial Services Board convened its annual Regional Tax & Compliance Symposium. One message emerged with striking clarity: in today’s global environment, compliance is no longer merely a cost of doing business. It is a decisive…
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The Reasons for Central Bank Independence
The independence of central banks is a cornerstone of price, financial and economic stability in the interest of the citizens that we serve. It is therefore critical to preserve that independence, with full respect for the rule of law and democratic…
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Jersey Finance’s Global Role in Sustainable Finance
This month we turn to the World Alliance member in Jersey to see how this island without carbon resources sustains its energy inputs to run a modern country, and what financial services in this area of interest do.
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Research Contributions to Financing Decarbonization: WAIFC Young Academic Award 2025
For the past four years, the World Alliance of International Financial Centers has recognized young researchers contributing particularly thoughtful commentary on the evolution of financial services.
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Program Lead of the Young Academic Award
Too often, academic research and industry practice operate in parallel rather than in partnership. The Young Academic Award deliberately creates a bridge between the two by inviting research that speaks directly to the role of finance in enabling sustainable…
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The British Family of Financial Centers
At TheCityUK, we champion the full strength and diversity of the UK’s financial and related professional services industry – an ecosystem that extends well beyond London, right across the regions and nations.
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How financial centres can reimagine the global dynamics of finance
Financial centers have long powered global growth, but the next era will be defined not by scale alone, but by the ability to evolve. As finance becomes more digital, data-driven, and talent-focused, infrastructure must expand without fragmenting the…
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The Many Shades of Green Finance
Across continents, financial centers are navigating the green transition under vastly different climates, resources, and economic realities—yet common threads clearly emerge.
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Davos 2026 – The Urgency of Transnational Ties
In a world marked by shifting political alignments and rising uncertainty, resilience and cooperation are no longer optional—they are strategic necessities. The 2026 discussions in Davos underscored that shared standards, collective investment, and pragmatic…
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WAIFC Conferences: What Members Reviewed in Late 2025
Public conferences are a key communications tool. Concerns and questions are raised by experts and aired before a professional audience. They are a great deal of work to prepare and execute, so the knowledge they gather becomes the record of ideas and…
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Green Finance on the Steppes of Central Asia
The Astana International Financial Center is located on the vast steppes of Kazakhstan, the landlocked country in the middle of the Eurasian landmass. How green finance works is, in part and everywhere, a function of the ancient relationship of humans to the…
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Bank Capital Requirements: A Word on Why They Exist
Beginning 90 years ago, in the 1930s, in large parts of the world, central banks took on the role of supervising commercial and savings banks in their jurisdictions, as governments stepped in to guarantee a minimum level of deposits to reassure savers and…
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Consistency of Actions – the Strategic Value of Reputation in a Complex World
Earning that reputation is not easy. It takes a combination of qualities. Integrity. Character. Trust. Action. Credibility. Leadership. Empathy. Consistency.
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Istanbul Financial Center’s Green Finance Setting
The WAIFC’s colleagues in Istanbul are located at one of the world’s geographical pivot points, their own city literally split between Europe and Asia by the Bosphorus. Türkiye is largely surrounded by the Black, Aegean, and Mediterranean Seas; and like…
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Navigating Hong Kong’s ESG Opportunities
To honor the United Nations Climate Week in New York in the last days of September, the WAIFC newsletter resumes its global tour of member jurisdictions to salute their work in sustainable finance.
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Fiat Money in August 2025
The annual global central bankers’ conference just ended in Wyoming, where it has been convened every August for four decades. Although central bankers gather monthly at the Bank for International Settlements in Basel to share thoughts mostly behind closed…
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Financing Poland’s Green Transition And Future Finance Poland
While the Alliance works on global syntheses of these efforts along with other topics of common interest, the management team wishes to highlight the green work done in individual member jurisdictions.
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Stability Must Cut Through for IFCs in a Fragmented Global Landscape
Over the years, Jersey has been successful in building a stable, well-regulated, internationally respected finance centre. But the world is different now, changing fast.
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Central Banking Topics for Green Finance: Focus on South Korea
The WAIFC Board Strategy Committee has chosen to focus at length on two topics of common global interest, financing the green transition and how artificial intelligence will continue to change our industry.
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ChatGPT’s View on AI in Financial Services
AI is steadily reshaping financial services, and WAIFC members are keen to explore its evolving impact. From early digital trading to modern automation, the progression has been gradual, with each advancement bringing new efficiencies and challenges.…
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Sustainability-Linked Finance
Whatever the debates of the moment amongst political leaders, the world is experiencing rapid climate change. No politician can stop its increasing impact, though many may choose to ignore or downplay it.
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Does Davos in January Still Set the World’s Thought Agenda?
Each January, global business, political, and NGO leaders gather in Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum to discuss pressing global issues. Davos 2025, themed “Collaboration for the Intelligent Age,” explored the challenges of converging…
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International Networks in Times of Tension
2024 has been the year of historic participation in elections and record temperatures, and of wars, unrest and tensions across many parts of our world. To begin the business year of 2025, the management team chooses to underscore the value of WAIFC’s global…
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The 2024 Nobel Prize for Economics
In October 2024, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Swedish Central Bank Prize in economic sciences in memory of Afred Nobel. The three joint laureates were Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and…
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80 Years After Bretton Woods, What Do We Need?
Improbably enough, with eyes trying to focus on a future that was so very hard to discern in the midst of the most devastating war the world had ever experienced, in 1944 economic and financial policymakers convened at an isolated resort hotel in New England,…
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Filling the Talent Gap in Securities Finance and Collateral
Banks, asset managers, and technology firms know they need younger staff to grow but have different types of needs due to artificial intelligence, large language models, and other new technologies. Younger people appear more reluctant to seek out careers in…
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The Challenges of Fragmentation of the International Financial System – Towards a Brave New World Order?
The ongoing transition to a new world order reshapes the international monetary system, leading to increased geopolitical tensions and the fragmentation of global financial structures. As power shifts and competing blocs emerge, the risks to global financial…
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The Cost of Money: The 2024 BIS Annual Report
The BIS Annual Report underscores persistent economic challenges, including inflation and financial vulnerabilities. It highlights the need for central banks to focus on long-term stability and resilience, emphasizing the importance of effective policy…
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The Role of International Financial Associations in the One Belt One Road
The changing world order is a great challenge for the international financial system and its regulation. The role of international financial associations and federations should promote cooperation and cohesion. Historical experience shows that after economic…
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Greening Supply Chain Finance in the 2020s
Global supply chains are phenomenal business creations. For financial services professionals, at first glance the complexity of supply chain production of finished goods is overwhelming, let alone the many questions entailed in unraveling this knot and…
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The SOE Report 2023: Towards a more resilient Nigeria’s FPS sector
EnterpriseNGR recently published the State of Enterprise (SOE) Report 2023 which is the second edition of its annual publication on Nigeria's Financial and Professional Services (FPS) sector. The design of the 2023 report celebrates the fusion of art and…
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The 2023 Nobel Prize in Economics for Understanding Women’s Labor Market Outcomes
WAIFC’s permanent agenda includes encouraging the advancement of women’s participation in the financial services sector. The ongoing underrepresentation of women in this industry translates to a vast loss of talent for society. There can be no better way to…
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Trends driving the future of finance in 2024
The world of finance is undergoing significant transformation as innovation continues to revolutionise the industry. During 2024, we expect AI, Big Data and Cloud to play a significant role in driving the future of finance.
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Monetary and Fiscal Policies are out of Balance
In an era where financial growth hinges on debt issuance and central banks' pivotal roles, a paradigm shift may be looming, challenging the long-standing reliance on low taxes and central bank bailouts. The OECD's push for a global corporate tax rate and…
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The Transformative Influence of Generative AI on the Modern Financial Landscape
In the ever-changing landscape of global finance, the emergence of Generative AI, commonly referred to as GenAI, presents a remarkable opportunity for transformation. This advanced form of AI, known for its capacity to generate a diverse range of content,…
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Investment Company Institute Global Priorities April 2023
The Investment Company Institute (ICI) works around the world as an industry trade body for regulated collective investment schemes.
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COP 28 November-December 2023 in Dubai WAIFC Involvement
Abu Dhabi Global Markets proposed the theme for this month’s opinion, in order to draw WAIFC members’ attention to an event that is significant for its 2023 calendar, the United Arab Emirates co-presidency of COP.
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Financial Stability Board Priorities February 2023
The Financial Stability Board (‘FSB’) is the financial world’s top overseer, the secretariat for G20 countries in financial affairs. On 20 February 2023, Klaas Knot set out the FSB’s focus as the year began. By definition, the world’s financial system is…
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Cooperation in a Fragmented World
The annual World Economic Forum conference in Davos gathers business, political, and academic leaders with the modest agenda of “figuring out the state of the world,” as it has done for more than 50 years. Its 2023 agenda highlights are a good place for WAIFC…
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The Big Picture: Economic Policy Lessons for 2023
This year-end reflection period may be unusual, because in many ways it is the first three years of the decade that together create the timespan that matters. We might draw a line of before and after Covid.
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Highlights of the APEC Business Advisory Council Report
The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation is an inter-governmental forum for 21 member-state economies in the Pacific Rim that promotes free trade throughout the region, founded in 1989. As the region has grown substantially in terms of economic heft since its…
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A CLOUD-ENABLED, DATA-DRIVEN INDUSTRY
The subject of this opinion is “the cloud,” defined as the delivery of computing services—including servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, and intelligence—over the Internet (“the cloud”) to offer faster innovation, flexible resources,…
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Risks and financing: societal challenge and responsibility of financial intermediaries
Our era is marked by events and challenges of unprecedented brutality that can cause existential shocks. Three current crises put the future of the planet at stake: the pandemic, which has almost been forgotten, the Russian-Ukrainian war, which after a phase…
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Getting the World’s Financial System Beyond COVID - Financial Stability Board Interim Report
This opinion comes in two sections. The first is a summary of preliminary findings of the Financial Stability Board, published in July 2022, on how to shake off the lingering effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. The second was a Joint Declaration made by WAIFC…
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Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Financial Services: What do the Regulators say?
In 2022, no one in the WAIFC environment could or should try to escape the transformational effects of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies. As with any change on this scale, what are the potential benefits and harms? These…
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Hong Kong’s plan to nurture FinTech talent across the Greater Bay Area
Human capital is an essential resource for every international financial center. Each IFC has to develop, attract, and retain enough professionals so that it has the necessary pool of skills and experience to satisfy the diverse demands of global finance.…
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Innovation and Structural Change – The Financial Stability Board's Workstreams
FinTech is not the only driver of change in financial services, though the excitement and interest it generates do get many of us swept up in its possibilities. There is, in fact, much more to the story of profound changes underway in the world's financial…
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Looking for Ideas? Try G30!
Business leaders look for clarity and fresh thinking for their planning in simple and complex times. Mid-2022 is not the simplest of times.
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Why IFRS announced the formation of the new organization- International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB)?
Already the Bible knows of the failure to build The tower of Babel because of the loss of a common language. If we want to succeed, the importance of establishing an internationally recognized set of rules, a common language in financial and sustainability…
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Global Derivatives Update In a World in Flux
Futures and options contracts have been comprehensively embedded in the global financial system since their beginnings in the 1970s. The effects continue to be transformative.
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ESG Today, Growth Tomorrow
Sustainable finance requires being able to properly assess the climate impact of businesses and investors. Interoperability should be key in whatever approaches are taken.
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The Shock of War and Financial Stability
In March 2022, the world is shocked by war. While the conduct and outcome of the conflict are unknown as to scope, time, and consequences, in just days, the macroeconomic impacts across the globe are already considerable.
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The 'Quiet' in Insurance Sector
How Much?In the center of financial services systems, one vast and critical business area does not seem to attract the noisy news coverage its peers in capital markets, investment management, and banking do: the estimated global value of insurance premiums…
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Is it ownership or debt?
We in the financial services sector are rightly proud of the incalculable speed and variety of the products and services we sell to society. It truly is stunning. But it is the adjective “incalculable” that poses the question about what it is that we do. How…
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The Global City: Introducing a Concept
Some ancient cities and several very new ones have understood that a certain kind of urban sociology is essential for promoting the financial services of the 2020s. That seems obvious today. But if one considers the far greater number of other cities around…
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Increased collaboration among international financial center continue to strengthen economic recovery
This past year has shown us it is impossible to separate health from finance, environment, and sustainability, and just as economic differences result in horrific consequences from a health perspective, a global pandemic can rip apart even the most strong and…
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Making green financing a reality
Rwanda is positioning itself as a hub for green investment as it trials a new instrument to credit check SMEs' green credentials.
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Global Financial City: Tokyo Vision 2.0
To play a unique role in the Asia Pacific region as a financial center, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government published “Global Financial City: Tokyo Vision 2.0” in November 2021, which is a revised version of the original vision formulated in 2017. It sets forth…
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Project Dunbar – Settlements in Central Bank Digital Currencies
Can we get to instant multicurrency central bank payments thanks to new technologies? On the central bank horizon, there a change in the offing that will matter to all actors in international financial centers – though there is much still to organize, and…
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Launch of Capital Economic Report - Facilitating Growth, Employment & Prosperity In Africa
The Economic Development Board of Mauritius has launched a new study highlighting how Mauritius can contribute to Facilitate Growth, Employment & Prosperity In Africa.
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The Jackson Hole Central Bankers’ August Symposium, 2021
Like the national defense, the creation and management of a country’s currency is a sovereign right of governments. No other actors have more power to affect our economies and financial systems than our central banks.
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Where is Sustainability Information in 2021?
Let’s get used to relying on assurance statements. They are not new, but they have been flying low under the public radar.
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Overseeing the World’s Audit Profession
This is a story of the twists and turns and multiple actors and time lags involved in agreeing on how to oversee the world’s auditors. It also describes how long and hard it is to set global financial services principles.
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The Coalescing of ESG / Sustainability Standards
International Financial Centers can expect a progressive coalescing of the actors in their marketplaces around either the Value Reporting Foundation or the Global Reporting Initiative. Having two major, credible methodologies for preparing ESG /…
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Cryptocurrencies: From rebellion to the state of ownership?
Currencies are like deities: they need followers. They are not immortal. Chased out of their pantheon when they lose their aura, others, rebels, take their place.
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The Enhanced Meaning and Impact of Financial Centers
I think of international financial center leaders as orchestra conductors. Each instrument can be played on its own – violins or clarinets or oboes, or in this case a bank or an insurer – yet when orchestrated they become part of a greater whole.
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A Roadmap to Recovery
Nobody could have predicted what’s happened over the last 12 months. Covid 19 has provoked a public health emergency in the UK and across the world. And the economic consequences have been profound for families, communities, and businesses right across our…
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Kazakh government's strong response to the global pandemic
The pandemic has caused enormous changes in the world economy and forced us to reconsider its course and implement measures to soften the impact of the COVID-19. The Kazakh government has shown a strong response with a sizable stimulus program to support the…
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2020 crisis, a way forward: how Financial centers may help
2020 crisis, a way forward. Everyone was predicting a new crisis to happen as a surprise. It did! But most predictions were about structural causes or some bubbles. This time it is very different: a brutal stop of our economies one after the other without…
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Why do Financial Centers Matter?
International Financial Centres provide low transaction costs, easy access to the capital, qualified labor force, political stability, and dynamic business eco-system.
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Financial centers: from their historical roots to modern technology hubs
Market places have existed since humans have started to exchange goods: gathering in one place was the best way to promote transactions. Farmers came from the countryside to the cities to sell their productions: fruits, vegetables, grains, chickens, ….The…
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Why do financial centers matter and how WAIFC can contribute to accelerating their development?
The transformation of the economy and the international monetary and financial system is now well underway, breaking with the model that prevailed before the 2007 financial crisis. In the new developments that are taking shape, access to market financing, but…
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