ABSTRACT
One of the most striking aspects of the 1960s and 1970s was the dramatic increase in the volume of international financial activity and the acceleration of the pace of financial innovation. Accompanying these two linked developments was the geographical dispersion of financial activity and the rise of new international financial centres. This paper examines this process in Hong Kong and Tokyo. Particular emphasis is placed on how the very different regulatory frameworks of these two cities affected their prospects and the different models of their emergence as IFCs. For Tokyo, the case of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank is used as an example of the nature of foreign bank activity. The paper concludes with some reflections on how the historical record informs our understanding of the performance of these two centres during the 1990s.
