Performance and Potential: Toronto’s Financial Services Sector, 2014

Financial services—which include banking, insurance, securities, credit unions, asset management, exchanges, and back office operations—are important for Toronto and for Canada internationally. In Toronto, the sector accounts directly for about 1 of every 13 jobs and indirectly for more than 200,000 jobs locally and across Canada. Internationally, Toronto has a good reputation and ranks as one of the more important global financial centres. This report compares Toronto’s financial services sector with other major financial centres around the world, looking at the sector’s characteristics and how the levels of education, income, and occupational structure compare with other global financial centres. The report also examines the role of foreign trade and investment in financial services as well as key trends in the sector’s FDI; financial services exports have more than doubled over the past decade, accounting for 11 per cent of services exports in 2013 and outperforming total services sector export growth.