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The City of London published a new report on the importance of wholesale financial services, examining the contribution of the sector to the EU economy. It analyses the sectors development within the EU over the past five years and assesses the impact of the Financial Services Action Plan. The report shows that EU wholesale financial activity reached 📃bn in 2006, representing over 30% of the global total.
Among others, the report finds that the average annual growth rate of wholesale financial activity in the EU has grown by 6.5% per year between 2001 and 2006 outperforming the equivalent US growth rate of 6.0%. This is over three times greater than the overall EU economic growth rate of 1.9% over the same period.
Also, wholesale finance in the EU is becoming increasingly integrated. Crossborder loans between EU banks, for example, now make up 42% of all inter-bank loans, up from just 26% in 1997.