Global Financial Markets

In the course of my career I have been lucky enough to have worked at one time or another in all the major financial centres as well as in most other smaller regional cities.

If London, New York and Tokyo are the largest markets where I have worked, Paris, Frankfurt, Milan, Madrid, Dubai, Riyadh, Kuwait, Johannesburg, Hong Kong, Sydney, Shanghai, Chicago, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, and Mexico City all hold fond memories.

Singapore which has grown from a strategically important trading centre but smaller Asian city to now being in the top flight of global financial centres turning over in excess of USD 1.1 trillion of foreign exchange on average each day is a city that I have spent a lot of time. The contrast with Malaysian neighbour Kuala Lumpur is striking as is the comparative and diverging GDPs of the two countries.

In sleepy Darussalam, the capital of Brunei in Asia and home to the Sultan of Brunei who apart from currently being the longest reigning monarch in the world is conservatively worth USD 50 billion and where despite all that oil wealth, one can scarcely credit it as being a financial centre.

At the other end of the world and the trading day, only 40 years ago Los Angeles and San Francisco were important financial centres in their own rights rather than being satellites of New York as they are today, due to technology and efficiencies that have ruthlessly driven through the economies of scale that rule global markets.

And then in Europe where 30 years ago I managed 18 different bank trading operations for a German bank which included the European centres above but also included Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Istanbul, Moscow, Budapest, Prague, Dusseldorf, Luxembourg, Athens, Rotterdam, Brussels, Warsaw and Vienna. Once again liquidity from those centres has polarised to London which accounts for USD 3.4 trillion of foreign exchange daily which is in excess of 40% of global turnover.

Wherever I have worked and in whichever financial era there is a common trait running through financial markets and that is the people that I have worked with and in many cases who have remained friends long after we worked together. And I cannot count the number of times that I find myself opposite ex colleagues around the world across a meeting room table or needless to say, after working hours in a bar.

H.R.P