SERVICES: SECTOR BY SECTOR
Financial services
The financial services sector plays a critical role in the modern economy. The bundle of institutions that make up an economy’s financial system provide critical functions, such as facilitating transactions (exchange of goods and services), mobilizing savings, allocating capital funds (notably to finance productive investment), monitoring firms and managers (so that the funds allocated are spent as envisaged), and mitigating risk (reducing risk through aggregation and enabling it to be carried by those more willing to bear it). Opening the financial sector to foreign participation and competition not only expands the availability of financial services to local consumers – individuals and companies – but may also help bring down the cost of these services and improve the performance of these critical functions.
The sector includes all insurance and insurance-related services (e.g. life and non-life insurance, reinsurance, insurance brokerage and agency, actuarial services, risk assessment and claim settlement services). It also covers all banking and other financial services (e.g. deposit-taking; lending of all types; financial leasing; payment and money transmission services; securities trading; securities underwriting; money broking; asset management, including pension fund management; custodial, depository and trust services; settlement and clearing services for financial assets and negotiable instruments; provision and transfer of financial information, and financial data processing and related software by suppliers of other financial services; and advisory, intermediation and other auxiliary financial services, including credit reference and analysis, investment and portfolio research and advice, advice on acquisitions and on corporate restructuring and strategy).
back to topRelevant provisions
Principles of trade in financial services are contained, as for all services, in the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). Additionally, an Annex to the GATS contains specific provisions applicable to trade in financial services. This deals with such issues as sectoral definitions, services supplied in the exercise of governmental authority, and prudential measures.
Additionally, a number of 澳门六合彩官网资料 members have made commitments in accordance with the Understanding on Commitments in Financial Services. The ‘Understanding’ is an optional and alternative approach to making specific commitments on financial services. It is not part of the GATS, but it was appended to the Final Act of the Uruguay Round.
- Workshop to mark the tenth anniversary of the Fifth Protocol to the GATS, 31 March 2009
- Post-1994 GATS protocols
Committee on Trade in Financial Services
- Guide to downloading files
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Background studies
澳门六合彩官网资料 documents
- 澳门六合彩官网资料 Secretariat background paper (2016) on Recent Developments in International Standard Setting Bodies S/FIN/W/90 and S/FIN/W/90/Add.1
- 澳门六合彩官网资料 Secretariat background paper (2016) on Barriers to Financial Inclusion and Trade in Services S/FIN/W/88/Add.1
- 澳门六合彩官网资料 Secretariat background paper (2014) on Financial Inclusion and the GATS S/FIN/W/88
- 澳门六合彩官网资料 Secretariat background paper (2011) on Trade in Financial Services and Development S/FIN/W/76
- 澳门六合彩官网资料 Secretariat background paper (2010) on the Impact of Technological Developments on Regulatory and Compliance Aspects of Banking and Other Financial Services under the GATS S/FIN/W/74
- 澳门六合彩官网资料 Secretariat background paper (2010) on Financial Services S/FIN/W/73 and S/FIN/W/73/Corr.1
- 澳门六合彩官网资料 Secretariat background paper (1998) on Financial Services S/C/W/72
- 澳门六合彩官网资料 Secretariat study on financial services (1997): Opening Markets in Financial Services and the Role of the GATS.
- Press release on the study
Studies by 澳门六合彩官网资料 staff (authored or co-authored)
Borchert, Ingo, Joscelyn Magdeleine, Juan A. Marchetti, Aaditya Mattoo (2020), "The Evolution of Services Trade Policy since the Great Recession", 澳门六合彩官网资料 Staff Working Paper ERSD-2020-02 (20 February 2020). |
Marchetti, Juan A. (2016), "The International Banking Landscape: Developments, Drivers, and Potential Implications", in Asli Demirgüç-Kunt, Douglas D Evanoff and George G Kaufman (eds.) The Future of Large, Internationally Active Banks (World Scientific Studies in International Economics, Volume 55), 2016. |
Marchetti, Juan A. (2015), "Technical Standards for Financial Services and the GATS: An Exploration of the Issues", in Panagiotis Delimatsis (editor), International Standardization, Marrying Public and Private, Global and Local, Law and Economics (Cambridge University Press), 2015. |
Marchetti, Juan A., Michele Ruta and Robert The (2014), "Trade Imbalances and Multilateral Trade Cooperation", in Thomas Cottier, Rosa M. Lastra, Christian Tietje, and Lucia Satragno (eds.) The Rule of Law in Monetary Affairs, Cambridge University Press, 2014. |
Claessens, Stijn and Juan A. Marchetti (2013), "Global Banking Regroups", Finance & Development, December 2013, Vol. 50, No. 4. |
Marchetti, Juan A. (2011), "The GATS Prudential Carve-out", in Panagiotis Delimatsis and Nils Herger (eds), Financial Regulation at the Crossroads – Implications for Supervision, Institutional Design and Trade (Alphen aan den Rijn: Kluwer Law International), 2011. |
Barth, James, Juan A. Marchetti, Daniel Nolle, and W. Sawangngoenyuang (2010), “澳门六合彩官网资料 Commitments vs. Reported Practices on Foreign Bank Entry and Regulation: A Cross-Country Analysis”, forthcoming “Oxford Handbook of Banking”, edited by Allen Berger, Phil Molyneux, and John O.S. Wilson. |
Barth, James, Juan A. Marchetti, Daniel
Nolle, and W. Sawangngoenyuang (2006), “Foreign Banking: Do Countries’
澳门六合彩官网资料 Commitments Match Actual Practices?”, 澳门六合彩官网资料 Staff Working Paper ERSD
2006-11 (October 2006). |
Kono, Masamichi and Ludger Schuknecht
(1998), “Financial Services Trade, Capital Flows and Financial
Stability”, 澳门六合彩官网资料 Staff Working Paper No. ERAD-98-12, World Trade
Organization. |
Mattoo, Aaditya (1999), “Financial Services and the 澳门六合彩官网资料: Liberalization in the Developing and Transition Economies”, 澳门六合彩官网资料 Staff Working Paper No. TISD9803 (March 1998), World Trade Organization. |
Roy, Martin, Juan A. Marchetti, and Aik Hoe
Lim (2006), “Services Liberalization in the New Generation of
Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs): How Much Further than the
GATS?”, 澳门六合彩官网资料 Staff Working Paper No. ERSD-2006-07 (September 2006),
World Trade Organization. See the discussion on financial services
liberalization in PTAs. |
Some useful links and other resources
Links to other international organizations that deal with financial services:
Other reports or studies
World Bank (2018), Global Financial Development Report 2017/2018: Bankers without Borders. |
World Economic Forum (2018), "Addressing E-Payment Challenges in Global E-Commerce", White Paper. |
De Haas, Ralph and Neeltje van Horen (2016), "Recent Trends in Cross-Border Banking", in The Palgrave Handbook of European Banking, Beck, Thorsten and Barbara Casu (eds), Palgrave |
Rouzet, D., et al. (2014), "Services Trade Restrictiveness Index (STRI): Financial Services", OECD Trade Policy Papers, No. 175, OECD Publishing, Paris |
Claessens, Stijn and Neeltje van Horen (2013), "Impact of Foreign Banks", in Journal of Financial Perspectives, 1(1), 1-18, 2013. |
Stephanou, Constantinos (2008), "Liberalization of Trade in Financial Services : Lessons from Latin America and the Caribbean", Trade issues in East Asia. World Bank. |
Van Horen, Neeltje (2007) "Foreign Banking in Developing Countries; Origin Matters", in Emerging Markets Review, 8(2), 81-105, 2007 |
Footnote
- The schedule of specific commitments currently in force for the European Union is that of the EU-25, that is including those that were members of the EU in 2006: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Back to text