Ireland as an International Financial Centre

The CSO has put out its latest report on the international portfolio allocations of Irish-resident investors – see here.

At 1.4 trillion euro, the total foreign portfolio assets are nearly ten times Irish GDP, illustrating the overwhelming role played by international financial intermediaries (mutual funds, hedge funds, etc) in the foreign assets and foreign liabilities of Ireland.  Little can be inferred from these data about the international financial positions of Irish households (direct holdings and indirect holdings via pension funds, insurance firms and mutual funds).

5 replies on “Ireland as an International Financial Centre”

This report by Derek Scally is of interest in the general context of Ireland as an international financial centre.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2012/0822/1224322660276.html

To say that the document from the German Banking Federation is significant would be an understatement.

http://www.bankenverband.de/presse/presse-infos/bankenverband-fuer-europaeische-aufsicht-unter-dem-hut-der-ezb/files/120821_aufsichtsstruktur-bankenunion.pdf

It has many positive features from an Irish perspective, notably in the manner in which it proposes how the circle can be squared of having an EA, and a 27 minus the EA but including the City of London, and in pointing out that that the necessary steps can be taken quickly and without treaty change.

Meanwhile, on the Emerald Isle, the dictum of Tip O’Neill that “all politics is local” is, once again, being borne out.

This is a pretty good chart showing the interdepndence of the international banking network

http://wkwine.web.unc.edu/files/2011/05/pdfout.gif

“Countries are arranged
alphabetically counter-clockwise. Ties are weighted and directed. If country i holds bank
assets in country j, a black line connects the two nodes. In this way, the out-degree of i is the
in-degree of j. If j holds bank assets in i, a gray line marks that tie, and the out-degree of j is
the in-degree of i. Tie thickness represents the size of the bank holdings that one country has in another. Node size is the sum of the country’s total in-degree, or the sum of the banks
assets held by all foreigners in that national financial system. A white node indicates that
total in-degree is greater than total out-degree for that country, meaning that they are net
recipients of bank assets. A gray node indicates that the opposite holds.”

Comments are closed.