New Report Names UK Banks as Leading Source of Lending to Emerging Economies

LONDON, June 27, 2011 -

A new report from TheCityUK ( href="www.thecityuk.com/">www.thecityuk.com/)
reveals UK banks account for 19% of lending to emerging economies -
more than any other country.

The report, href="www.thecityuk.com/research/our-work/reports-list/financial-services-in-emerging-economies-2011/">
Financial Services in Emerging Markets, centres around
international bank lending and its impact on infrastructure and
other major projects.

In it, UK financial services
body TheCityUK finds spending by UK banks to emerging economies
totalled $862bn at the end of 2010. This spending is particularly
important to some countries, accounting for 71% of lending to South
Africa, 46% to United Arab Emirates, 30% to China, India and
Malaysia, and 17% to Brazil.

It also emerges that growth in the largest emerging economies -
led by Brazil, China and India - is being facilitated by rapid
expansion of domestic and international financial markets in those
countries. These markets increased by between 100% and 400% between
2005 and 2010, exceeding the 97% rise in nominal GDP in the same
countries during this period.     

In addition to international bank lending, the markets to have
roughly doubled in size between 2005 and 2010 were domestic bonds
and insurance. Markets to have risen more rapidly included
commercial bank assets, marine insurance, mutual funds and equity
market capitalisation, each of which rose roughly threefold. The
number of contracts traded on derivatives exchanges grew fastest
with a fivefold increase.

Only pension assets and international bonds have grown more
slowly than GDP. Pension assets were up by a third and
international bonds by over three quarters. 

For many leading countries - including Brazil, China, India,
Mexico, Turkey and Poland - their ranking amongst emerging
economies based on GDP is similar to their ranking based on
financial markets. For other countries there is some difference:
for example, South Africa, Malaysia and Chile rank higher in the
size of financial markets than on GDP ranking. By contrast, Russia,
Indonesia and Saudi Arabia tend to have a lower ranking in
financial markets than for GDP.

Learn more about href="www.thecityuk.com/uk-financial-services-overseas/">UK
financial services overseas at href="www.thecityuk.com/uk-financial-services-overseas/">www.thecityuk.com/uk-financial-services-overseas/

About TheCityUK

TheCityUK is the independent membership body promoting the UK’s
financial service industry and
related professional services industry. It was created with the
support and initial financial backing of the City of London
Corporation.

TheCityUK is the cross-sector voice for the href="thecityuk.com/financial-services-in-the-uk/">UK
financial services community working to build a deeper pool of
support across the UK, promoting UK financial services overseas and
contributing to the regulatory and trade policy debate.

The purpose of the organisation is to partner prosperity -
supporting the competitiveness of UK financial services and
protecting their considerable economic contribution. TheCityUK
co-ordinates and facilitates the contribution of its members to
drive and deliver its priorities.

Its UK-wide financial
services membership covers all sectors in the financial
services industry and the related professional services industry.
It is independent and politically neutral.

Find out more about href="www.thecityuk.com/">TheCityUK at href="www.thecityuk.com/">www.thecityuk.com/

Tim Skelton-Smith, TheCityUK, Head of Marketing Communications, +44(0)20-7776-8970, tim.skelton-smith at thecityuk.com