Strength in numbers: celebrating our 2nd anniversary

Since being established to provide an independent, cross-sector voice for UK financial and professional services two years ago, we now engage with more than 750 organisations, including multi-national banking groups, insurers, asset managers, brokers, consultants and global law firms. In the last year alone, we have held 120 meetings with policymakers in the UK and Europe and hosted an average of 20 practitioner events per month. Similarly, more than 110,000 of our market and economic reports are downloaded each year.

Since June 2010, we have made significant progress in fulfilling our three core objectives:

1. International promotion of the sector

• We run a series of Market Advisory Groups to help support the Government’s export strategy to emerging economies, including new Groups focusing on Turkey and Sub-Saharan Africa.
• We have built on the Liberalisation of Trade in Services (LOTIS) Committee’s long-standing role as a forum for identifying and acting on barriers to business worldwide, with an expanded membership.
• We have signed Memorandum of Understanding’s with Moscow, Dubai and Toronto as part of our network of International Financial Centres to increase the UK's trade links.
• We acquired Europe's leading promotional body for Islamic finance: UKIFS, underscoring the UK's position as Western Europe's premier centre for Islamic finance. 
• We’re helping to deliver the Ministry of Justice’s Plan for Growth alongside the Bar Council and the Law Society, with our work on the Unlocking Disputes campaign and support for the Lord Mayor's overseas visit programme.

2. Promoting the role of the sector

• TheCityUK is established as the primary cross sectoral interface between industry and Westminster: 119 policymaker events in 2011, including with new intake MPs, backbenchers, Select Committees, and Ministers at Cabinet Level positions.
• Our national policymaker engagement programme has taken the dialogue on the role of the sector in creating jobs and growth to policymakers, business and the public across the UK's major financial centres: Leeds, Newcastle, Belfast, Manchester, Bristol, Cardiff, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Liverpool and London. 
• Through the LOTIS Committee we have coordinated financial and professional services interest in EU trade policy, making strong representations on the EU-Korea FTA, the EU-India FTA, and on threats to open data-flows for business. Our recent focus on EU-US trade activity has included a meeting with US Trade Representative Ron Kirk.  
• We have worked with world-wide allies in the European Services Forum and the Global Services Coalition to promote members’ interests in global markets.
• The IRSG (run jointly with the City of London Corporation) has become established as the pre-eminent cross-sectoral body regarding the regulatory agenda across Europe, supporting the sector's engagement with EU member states, notably launching a report on growth and stability in Brussels last year.

3. Rebuilding the reputation of the sector

• In recognising the value of reconnecting the sector with society we launched the Social Investment Business Report and the Next Generation Vision. Building on that, the UK Strategy Committee has launched a series of initiatives with industry practitioners to rehabilitate the reputation of the financial and related professional services sector, and to help to reconnect it with the rest of the economy and the public.

Chris Cummings, CEO of TheCityUK, comments:

“TheCityUK was established to be the champion of the sector's competitiveness: an organisation that would clearly and vigorously campaign to improve the business environment for financial and related professional services firms.

"The next few years will require the industry to continue to come together if we are to carry popular and political opinion. With TheCityUK now well established, members have built a platform to engage with Europe's new policymakers, regulators, and opinion formers in a way that was not possible before. We will continue to develop as our members demand and, through their continued support, ensure that we will fulfil the vision set for us and improve the business climate.”

To find out more about TheCityUK, please contact us.