Rethinking international financial centres through the politics of territory: Renminbi internationalisation in London’s financial district

Hall, Sarah

Abstract

This paper revisits canonical thinking on international financial centres (IFCs) that understands them as being primarily sustained through: market liquidity; economies of competition and cooperation between financial and related professional services; and acting as interpretative nodes within global finance. In contrast, I explore the implications of foregrounding questions of power and politics in the (re)production of IFCs. Drawing on the case of the development of offshore renminbi markets in London’s financial district, I argue the state plays a vital, yet comparatively neglected, role in shaping the development and changing nature of international financial centres. In so doing, the paper calls for work in economic geography and cognate social sciences to understand finance as a political as well as an economic, social and cultural relation.

Citation

Hall, S. (2017). Rethinking international financial centres through the politics of territory: Renminbi internationalisation in London’s financial district. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 44(4), 489-502. https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.12172

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Nov 15, 2016
• Online Publication Date: Jan 25, 2017
• Publication Date: Dec 30, 2017
• Deposit Date: Dec 7, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 26, 2019
• Journal: Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers
• Print ISSN: 0020-2754
• Electronic ISSN: 1475-5661
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 44
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 489-502
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.12172
• Keywords: Renminbi internationalisation, City of London, international financial centres, regulation, territorial fix, offshore finance
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/828488
• Publisher URL: https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/tran.12172
• Additional Information: This is the peer reviewed version of the following article, which has been published in final form at https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/tran.12172. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.