Thursday, March 19, 2009The Fate of Financial Centres

Gilbert NMO MorrisOurs, Ourselves To Ruin

I spent 5 years trying to defend financial centres in every corner of the globe; or very nearly. Yet, except for a handful of Swiss banks, and one very senior Swiss banker, (a man of extraordinary grace and insight), I have never met a government official, or seen a policy proposal or heard an argument from an official anywhere – except Singapore – where there was a genuine understanding of financial centres and their corollary issues; those being: The transactional nexus (clearing and custody) in the Global Financial System (GFS); tax arbitrage; convergence; comity; rules of recognition; legislative secrecy v. constitutional privacy; the avoidance/evasion distinction; the privilege problem (as it relates to information transfers); Immigration and Labour laws; the sovereignty problem and the economic profile of jurisdictions offering financial services.

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