Coalition aims to take IFSC to next level with revised financial services strategy

When the International Financial Services Centre began life in 1987 it had just three companies, employing 55 people.

If a strategy drawn up for the Government comes to fruition, some 10,000 direct net new jobs will be created over the next five years to supplement the 35,000 that already exist across a range of functions and sectors.

A creation of former taoiseach Charles Haughey and financier Dermot Desmond, the IFSC has been one of the success stories of the Irish economy over the past quarter of a century.

It is primarily associated with the Dublin docklands but there are 10,000 jobs based outside the capital. Even the recent global financial crash hasn’t halted its progress, with a gain in employment of 8,000 over the period.

This updated strategy for international financial services (IFS) in Ireland follows months of consultation with interested parties in the public and private sectors, and more than 100 submissions.

A committee jointly chaired by the departments of the Taoiseach and finance has drafted a document for Minister of State Simon Harris, who took over responsibility for IFS last year.

Titled Vision and Targets for IFS 2020 and presented on January 30th, it includes 22 actions to be taken to "create a globally recognised international financial services sector in Ireland based on world-class people, processes, products and technology across indigenous and multinational businesses".

The actions and targets are to be reviewed and updated annually.

IFS is a broad church ranging from banking to insurance, from aircraft leasing to hedge funds and from treasury to asset management.

This latest strategy has three key components.

“To focus on co-ordinated branding and marketing through the key departments, agencies and network of embassies and consulates, as well as the network of international business associations to highlight international opportunities and growth.

“To create connectivity between indigenous companies and multinational businesses to allow us broaden the business base, as well as creating sector-specific policies to support regional communities.

“The establishment of a new structure with dedicated personnel to support all Government efforts across the IFS agenda.”

Six factors

The ambitious strategy identifies six factors that will be important to the success of the plan: a skilled workforce, a “supportive ecosystem”, business-friendly policies, easy access to the European Union market, a supportive tax and legal regime and a stable regulatory environment.

Mr Harris has said he wants the public sector to “hold the pen” on formulating a new strategy for IFS.

The draft plan will be refined with names put beside each action along with a target date for implementation.

The target markets are familiar ones: Boston, New York and Washington in the United States, London, Berlin, Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Canada.

Embassies will be in the front line of implementing the plan along with the IDA and Enterprise Ireland.

“In their annual plans, local market teams in priority markets for IFS, chaired by the ambassador and bringing together embassy and State agencies to ensure a co-ordinated approach on the ground, will reflect IFS goals and targets,” the document states.

The work of these teams is overseen by the Export Trade Council and the action will include identifying membership of relevant international financial services bodies/organisations.

A co-ordinated programme of overseas engagements to complement the activity of agencies and industry is to be scheduled and published.

The document says there is agreement that the branding of Ireland’s IFS proposition “should be refreshed” with a “banner brand” to be determined. At present, there isn’t even a website operated by a State agency promoting the IFSC.

Trade missions by the Minister are to be built into the marketing programme, supported by the embassy network.

Annual summit

It is also proposed that Ireland would host an annual summit covering “all aspects of the IFS 2020 agenda”. The Government has been mightily impressed by the success of the annual Web Summit in focusing the spotlight on the Irish tech industry and bringing indigenous and multinational businesses together.

Mr Harris attended the eighth Asian Finance Forum in Hong Kong recently and is thought to support the idea of hosting a European version in Dublin.

The plan also wants to promote Ireland as a centre for innovation by encouraging the growth of next generation financial technology (fintech) companies, and to encourage start ups and entrepreneurship in this space.

“IDA and Enterprise Ireland in partnership to drive collaboration between Ireland’s IT and IFS sectors – both indigenous and multinational – to win additional fintech investments,” the plan states.

It also talks about setting up an “engagement process with investee-ready fintech start-ups” and a review of funding mechanisms for such businesses. This is to include the “feasibility of developing a dedicated syndicate to fund fintech start ups”.

In addition, the plan recommends partnering with “existing accelerators to support engagement and an upskilling/mentoring process with participating companies”.

It also envisages increasing the scale of business process outsourcing companies here and creating a national approach to the development of a payments hub.

The draft plan involves exploring opportunities infrastructure around depositary services and clearing and settlement, and whether a “securitisation cluster” can be “built into a competence centre” here.

Actions have been framed around non-banking opportunities, including peer-to-peer lending and crowdfunding. A focus on emerging skills in the workforce and increasing the “breadth” of skills and knowledge in the public sector is included in the document.

On regulation, there is mention of the “development of operational metrics” for publication in the Central Bank’s annual report. And the sector is to liaise with the Revenue Commissioners and the departments of finance, and foreign affairs and trade to identify “potential target countries” for double taxation treaties.

Expanding the footprint of the IFSC in the Dublin docklands is considered, in light of the key involvement of the National Asset Management Agency in shaping the future use of 325,000sq/m of commercial space in the area.

A new “IFS council or board”is mooted, chaired by the Minister of State and comprising key public sector representatives to oversee IFS 2020.

Monitoring of implementation of the strategy would be done by a project team housed in the Department of the Taoiseach. It would report through the existing action plan for jobs framework and the Cabinet committee system. The existing clearing house group would be “reconfigured”.

It is understood this strategy will be refined with Mr Harris taking his final plan to Cabinet at the end of February before a public launch in March.

The aim is to have it ready to roll for the various ministerial trade missions that will take place around St Patrick’s Day, with the Government no doubt hoping that some successes can be achieved by the time of the next general election.