america's global presence in commerce is the backbone of american finance's global domination. nearly every country in world has a mcdonalds, starbucks, microsoft, ford and gm and the hundreds of thousands of enterprises ranging from family businesses to faceless behemoths and they all need FX and cash management and funding and commodity hedging and capital raising and securitization and nearly everything else.
which other country extends its commercial presence like this? the germans and the european banks (because german companies fund in euros) come to mind - coba, bnp, credit ag - but (1) german industry is not quite as big as the american industry (2) even the american supermarket-style banks like citi compete aggressively in this space.
The topic is investment banking (not retail banking) but both RBC and TD Bank entered the US market by buying US banks. And this is exactly what I said European investment banks tried to do.
>Europe also runs a trade surplus with the U.S. so it's unclear where this macro trend you think exists comes from either.
Financial services are only a small part of the economy compared to e.g. raw materials. But I'm not an economist/accountant so I don't know where it comes out in the wash as regards trade surplus when a UK subsidiary of a US company makes money in the UK.
What most people in this thread are talking about is retail banking. Retail banking in the US lags far behind the EU in terms in technology and security. However, retail banking is only accounts for about 25% of total profits when compared to commercial and investment banking. This is where US banks have consistently beaten the competition. Especially since Brexit which has destabilized London as the financial hub of Europe
Compared to Germany, US banking consumer services are in the stone age. Investor level services on the the other hand... We lead the world in inventing ever new investment types.
Per https://www.fsb.org/wp-content/uploads/P211122.pdf the only Tier 4 bank is US based but _plenty_ of other banks around the world are systemically important. Is the US overly represented? Sure. But I’d also imagine they are more interconnected to the global financial system than other world wide banks
which other country extends its commercial presence like this? the germans and the european banks (because german companies fund in euros) come to mind - coba, bnp, credit ag - but (1) german industry is not quite as big as the american industry (2) even the american supermarket-style banks like citi compete aggressively in this space.
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