Global Financial Centers Index: Vancouver among top 25 in world
 

This report first came to my attention on SSC. The Global Financial Centers Index report is published by the City of London:

http://217.154.230.218/NR/rdonlyres/...S_GFC7full.pdf

Highlights:
• Vancouver is ranked 23rd globally as a financial centre, just behind Paris, Taipei, and Guernsey, and just ahead of the Isle of Man, Dubai, and Montreal.
• Vancouver moved up 6 positions in rank from the previous GFCI report.
• Vancouver is ranked 7th in North America, behind New York, Chicago, Toronto, Boston, San Francisco, and Washington DC, and ahead of Montreal.
• The GFCI defines Vancouver as an "Established Transnational" financial centre offering services both "broad and deep". Others in this group include Boston, Edinburgh, Melbourne, Sydney, Stockholm and Tokyo.

1- Dubai is not a real city
2- Any report that places Vancouver above Seattle on anything economic-related can't be taken seriously
3- I will nonetheless post this on the national section on SSC just to rile the forumers there

So, what are everybody's thoughts on this ranking / report?

Personally I was surprised we would be ranked so highly. For example, there are a number of large American cities that I would imagine being higher than us as financial centers - I can only assume they're not considered because their services are largely US-focussed, rather than global. :shrug:

It is interesting to see that we moved up 6 ranks as well. I assume this is largely due to Canadian cities and institutions weathering the economic downturn better than other countries. For example, Vancouver surpassed Dubai and Dublin in the ranking, cities both hit hard by the recession.

Another thing that surprised me was that we are ranked (just slightly) ahead of Montreal. I don't really know enough about Montreal's financial services (nor Vancouver's, honestly) to comment on this though. I know they would've been a more significant financial centre (at least in Canada) several decades ago but I would've thought they'd still be ranked higher than Vancouver.

:tup:

Vancouver is ahead of Montreal and Calgary didn't even make the list. Cool. London is number one so they must know what they're talking about.

hard to understand........
 

The page posted by raggedy had expired, but I found it on Google.

It had several different scales, and I found it hard to understand.

However, on one scale, we were AHEAD (get this) of San Francisco and Frankfurt ! ! ! Not possible.! ! ! !

On another map we were 29th in the world, and San Fran was 8th, which is more like it.

Seattle would weigh in ahead of us any day, anyway, so while I think the ratings were put together with integrity, the results came out a little out of whack ! ! !

^I fixed the link. Thanks for pointing that out.

London being number One rings true, and Calgary, though important proprtionate to its size rings true, too. But I cannot believe we're ahead of Montreal.

Also, there were several different scales, and the cities were assigned different rankings on each one. It was a bit confusing for me to understand. A financial person would not have the same problem, I am sure.

Also - and very importantly - the cities were ranked within their "type" or "group" according to their characteristics. The page I saw on Google had Sydney ahead of Toronto, but in fact, it is more transnational in character, whereas Toronto IS a major world financial centre, classified as "BROAD AND DEEP," ranking with the big guys.
Still ....... where is Seattle?? (Boeing, Microsoft, et al). That doesn't make any sense that it isn't there at all!!!!

Don't believe everything you read. Seattle is a more important financial centre than Vancouver, and they are NOWHERE to be found in that study.

It's missing a lot of cities. Never mind Seattle, where is L.A.?

vancouver is strong in the wealth management sector

I don't know much about Seattle's finance industry but I'm quite sure Seattle's large companies like Microsoft are not a part of it. Correct me if I'm wrong but Microsoft is a high-tech company, it doesn't offer financial services and expertise. This report looks at cities as financial service centers, not at how many large, non-finance corporate HQs they have.

Seattle clearly has a larger corporate economy than Vancouver and is home to some significant international companies but that alone doesn't necessarily make it a player in global finance.

The report could be inaccurate but if it isn't, this would be my take on it. :shrug:

Well, for those of you that are kvetching, while I think ALL would agree about Seattle's financial power far outranks Vancouver's, this report says nothing of Vancouver being more powerful than Seattle....since Seattle is not found anywhere in the report.

The more valid question is then, under what parameters must a city have/fulfill in order to be included in this ranking. How were the cities in the rankings chosen and why were they chosen?

I'm sure that the report is for the City of London would influence, to some extent, which cities were included in the report.

how about this

from this article: http://moneymorning.com/2010/03/16/invest-in-canada/

This was informative:

http://www.bcbusinessonline.ca/bcb/t...nce-techniques

Also of note:

http://www.bcctc.ca/conn19-3/vancouver.htm

It is true, I often work with mining companies, Vancouver is a major financial and head office hub for mining, many of the projects themselves located in eastern Canada, the US, south America, Africa and south Asia.

Private banking is *huge* industry here with our exceptional foreign born residents who hide their money elsewhere :haha:.

HSBC, in particular, is quite involved with that in Vancouver, and it's far bigger than most would imagine. But is that enough?

Reminds me, ScotiaBank recently threw a lavish party for their top 250 private banking clients in Canada, in Vancouver. The vast majority already lived here.

With the collapse of Washington Mutual, Seattle's financial services sector took a massive hit that will continue to tarnish is reputation for years to come.

Well, I hate to ruin the party, but that publication appears to be a stock touting service, so the hyperbole about both Calgary and Vancouver does not surprise me one bit.

There are some legitimate and serious mining firms in Vancouver, but there is much more garbage - and a whole industry of promoters, accountants, lawyers and geologists to go with it. Not the kind of thing that a financial centre revolves around.

In terms of mining financing, London and Melbourne are still bigger players. Vancouver lost some of its status with the demise of the Vancouver stock exchange.