ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of the financial services sector from two perspectives. It describes the geography of supply. The chapter also provides a solid grounding in the products that comprise financial services. Whilst various forms of financial services provision can be traced back many centuries, the development of commercial organisations of substance and scale coincided with the expansion of international trade as the eighteenth century progressed. Numerous sources across the globe attest to the link between economic development and the expansion of a financial services sector. Economic development and prosperity cannot flourish in the absence of a suitable infrastructure of financial services provision. The structure of financial services marketplaces around the world varies according to local environmental characteristics. Physical geography, logistics and infrastructural features such as telecommunications also have a part to play in determining the local evolution of financial services, as do social, religious and cultural factors.
