2. Chapter 12
‘Making the World Go Round’: Advanced Business Services — Especially Finance

3. Review Concepts to Review Key Words
Information and communciations technologies, knowledge networks, global cities, state/TNC relationships, regulation and deregulation
Key Words
Advanced business services, ‘casino capitalism’, global 24-hour trading, ‘headhunting’

4. Advanced Business Services: Definition and Structure
Definitions
Financial services
Banks
‘Casino capitalism’
Current trends
Concentration, consolidation, diversification
Drivers behind ABS
Market saturation
Disintermediation
Deregulation
Internationalization

5. ABS and Information Information and ABS Impact of IT on ABS
Electronic communications
securitization and derivatives
Risk becomes delocalized and outsourced
Impact of IT on ABS
Global 24-hour trading?
Collapse of space and time, instantaneous financial transactions worldwide
Most ABS depend on having a direct presence within their markets

6. Regulation and Deregulation
Trend to increasing deregulation until 2008 crisis
Deregulatory pressures
Regulation
Historically the most tightly regulated industry
Regulations are of two types:
Governing the relationshipp between different financial activities
Governing entry of firms
Reintervention of the state post-2008

7. Geographies of ABS Deterritorialization of ABS?
ABS are not tied to raw material locations
However it also makes geography more, not less important
Role of the global city
Attractions of the global city
The potential for other cities to develop as financial centres is limited
Decentralization of ABS
‘Back-office’ functions decentralized
Offshore financial centres