Technologies and Proximities: Frankfurts New Role in the European Financial Centre System
The main argument in this paper is that new information and communication technologies (ICT) in the financial industry will increase specialisation and competition within the European financial centre system and thereby lead to a re-bundling of functions of the various financial centres. Frankfurt plays an interesting role in this development as it is one of the main development centres for financial technology. With these technologies, remote access to the Frankfurt stock exchange and inter-bank payment system is now feasible from most European cities. This leads to a reduced need for physical presence, which opens up new possibilities for the financial sectors spatial organisation. However, as financial production is information- and knowledge-intensive, spatial and other types of proximity between financial actors and clients are still essential in many stages. We examine the value chains of three different products (advisory, lending, trading) with regard to different proximities, in order to identify possible patterns of their spatial (re)organisation. From these findings, inferences are drawn for a new role for Frankfurt in the European financial centre system.
G15 - International Financial Markets ; O18 - Regional, Urban, and Rural Analyses ; R12 - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity ; R39 - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location. Other ; Management of financial services: stock exchange and bank management science (including saving banks) ; Individual Working Papers, Preprints ; Europe. General Resources