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Top 10 cities for a career in Finance

Joined
9/24/10
Messages
45
Points
18
1. Boston, Massachusetts, USA
2. Chicago, Illinois, USA
3. Dubai, United Arab Emirates
4. Frankfurt, Germany
5. Hong Kong, China
6. London, England
7. New York, New York, USA
8. San Francisco, California, USA
9. Tokyo, Japan
10. Zurich, Switzerland


Surprisingly, NYC is not even in Top 3....

*not sure it's the latest ranking list or not
here's the link: Top 10 Cities For A Career In Finance
 
No doubt this article is at least 2 years old. Lehman died long time ago in "finance" years.
 
Nope. There is only NYC now. LDN is done.

I don't mean to sound confrontational, but how can you say that? Are you basing your opinion on some objective fact? Because last time I checked London was home to the world's 4th largest stock exchange (and Europe's largest). Furthermore, London is the world's largest center for foreign exchange and is home to Barclays, Lloyds, Standard Chartered and HSBC, not to mention Deloitte, PWC and Ernst & Young. IMO it is New York that has lost the most IB/Finance activity recently... but look I don't profess to know everything. All I'm saying is that it seems a little arrogant to claim that your prospects in NY are that much greater than in London.
 
I'm not quite sure about "career in finance" but if you ask about "to start career in finance for a foreigner" I would rank Hong Kong as No 1 from my experience - it is limited so take it for what it worth but it's still a someone's experience ;)

- Very easy to get work visa - 2K USD sponsorship from your compary and you are in.
- Low tax rates - aprox. 15%
- Very competitive remuneration - It's behind LDN and NYC but just slightly,
- A lot of IBs are hiring very agressively on this market for their new lines of business to focus on China, India, Korea and Japan especially after 2008 and especially on China.
- Because they (IBs) were / are short on people it was slightly easier to get AVP, VP position than in LDN, TKY and NYC for people with the same experience and background.
Can't explain it though - just an observation.
- It has some nice universities to study finance part-time and they are well respected in APAC.
 
I'm not quite sure about "career in finance" but if you ask about "to start career in finance for a foreigner" I would rank Hong Kong as No 1 from my experience.

Just curious is it good to live in HK?
I've heard about dirty streets and living on 70th floor.
 
This discussion reminds me a lot about a famous cover of the New Yorker

newyorker2.JPG
 
Nope. There is only NYC now. LDN is done.

I think that is a little premature to be honest. London has been through worst and survived. There are plenty of things that come to mind that would suggest if anything NYC is the one in danger of losing its position.
 
hahah. I was only joking. I am in NYC so obviously I am going to say NYC is #1. It is definitely funny though, since everytime this topic comes up people go crazy about london not being as good or better than NYC.

London is great. NYC is better, but I am sure we all already know that.
 
Just curious is it good to live in HK?
I've heard about dirty streets and living on 70th floor.

The only thing not so great is the relatively small living space compared to some other major cities in the region, or in the world.

Dirty streets? If you can live with NYC, or Manhattan to be more specific, you won't have any problem with Hongkong in that matter.
 
Y'all need to get out more. NYC may have a number of great things but you couldn't pay me enough to live there longer than a year.
 
London is great. NYC is better, but I am sure we all already know that.

London plays second fiddle to NYC. London became a global financial services hub when Britain was top dog. Today, with a relatively weak (British) economy, London could lose its role as a global financial hub with time.

I personally wouldn't like to live in London. I would prefer any continental European city -- Frankfurt or Paris, say. In my opinion, the quality of life is superior.
 
I grew up on a beach-town in India. I did highschool and undergrad in a small town in Canada, and was a grad student in a big college town in USA. I have visited almost every major city in USA and Canada in addition to several asian and european countries.

I like big city feel and absolutely love New York, but I would love to work in a place like Winston-salem too.

New York just has more opportunities in finance than any other city from what I have seen. If you include a 40-45 minute radius of NYC then it's even more.

It's the place to be if you want to grow in finance. But then again, places like Houston also have lots of opportunities depending what in finance you want to do. It's all about personal preference at the end of the day.

;)
 
London plays second fiddle to NYC

Ultimately arguments like this are going to come down to personal choice. Having worked in London, and now being based near New York, I prefer London, I also prefer Boston to NYC.
I find the cab situation in London is a lot better than NYC and public transport is excellent in London as well (as much as Londoners like to moan about it).

I can be in Paris on the train quicker from London, then I can Boston to New York.

But hey different horses for different courses. As for NYC staying the top dog in the finance world, I think there are going to be some huge challenges to that from Asia and Europe in the coming years and if the $ no longer remains the world reserve currency, that could have a serious blow to the finance industry.
 
As for NYC staying the top dog in the finance world, I think there are going to be some huge challenges to that from Asia and Europe in the coming years and if the $ no longer remains the world reserve currency, that could have a serious blow to the finance industry.

I agree. I think it's question of when, rather than if. Remember, though, that the continental Europeans are possibly not that eager to have a global financial hub -- because of the distortions it creates in the domestic economy. Look at Britain as a prime example -- decrepit industrial heartlands in the North and modern financial centre in London.
 
Look at Britain as a prime example -- decrepit industrial heartlands in the North and modern financial centre in London.

I'm not sure you can blame the decline of industrial Northern England and the Midlands on London's growth as a financial hub though.
Competition from cheap imports (the primary factor), nationalized industries becoming moribund, militant unions, the Tory governments approach to dealing with the above in the 80's and a lack of investment are the major factors in industrial decline.

The New Labour government essentially papered over the cracks with public money during the boom years, rather then invest in the North and encourage specialist manufacturing to move in to the area.

As for the European approach to a financial hub. There may be some grumbling, tantrum throwing and deliberate attempts to screw things up from some parts of the political left and right in the EU - overall though any politician with sense can see that having a financial hub in London, is as important to EU growth as is an Industrial hub in Germany. After all more tax revenue lets the politicos in Brussels live on the high hog.

With something in the region of 500 million citizens in the EU, there is no reason why competing financial systems such as the hausbank versus the market based system can not thrive under an economic free market and further provide some economic hedging for downturns - Germany seems to have survived through the recession rather well.

The question is, does the EU have the willpower to put the squabbling aside and build a manufacturing, finance and science base that can rival China and India in the coming decades? That's something I don't think I can answer.
 
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