Industry in focus: Financial and Professional Services

Long recognised on the international stage as one of the world’s major business centres – alongside New York, London, Hong Kong and Tokyo – Sydney is one of the most dynamic and fast-growing business environments in the world. Within Australia, it is the economic hub of the state of New South Wales (NSW) and generates almost half of the financial services outputs that make Australia’s finance sector so globally competitive. 

Most of the country’s financial services are based in the harbourside city centre, with 63 percent of the top 100 companies listed on the ASX and 15 of the world’s top 20 investment banks headquartered in the central business district (CBD), alongside Australia’s central Reserve Bank and the Australian Securities Exchange (the ASX). By 2026, the banking and finance sector is predicted to generate one in every five dollars in the city’s economy.  

In addition, each of the big four global accountancy and management consulting firms has offices in Sydney, with two based in Sydney’s newest financial precinct, Barangaroo, which is on track to be the first large-scale climate-positive precinct in the world. 

Located between Sydney Harbour and the city centre – and born out of a disused shipping container terminal – Barangaroo is a 22 hectare waterfront precinct for business and leisure. It is home to International Towers, where global financial and professional services companies reside, including Swiss Re, Accenture, CMC Markets, Cognizant, Visa, KPMG and PwC; and offers fine dining and a luxury hotel in Sydney’s tallest building, Crown Towers Sydney. The precinct is within easy reach of the International Convention Centre Sydney (ICC Sydney), convention spaces and special event venues, as well as accommodation options with 42,000 hotels rooms across multiple price points, making it an ideal base for financial conferences and global meetings.  

Driven by innovation – which runs through government, academia, research, business and industry – and supported by a knowledge-based economy, Sydney is the professional services capital of Australia. It is home to over two-thirds of all actuaries residing in the country and in 2017 the sector accounted for 9 percent of the economic output of NSW.  

Professional structures in Australia, such as legal firms, are at the forefront of identifying new business models and ways of delivering services for clients, including the development of a regional hub approach, through which doing business in Sydney means greater access to markets across Asia-Pacific.   

Australia's global city, Sydney is acknowledged internationally as a unique destination for world-class events and BESydney has worked with many clients to host global meetings for major financial and professional services partners in the city in recent years. This includes Sibos, the world's largest financial services meeting, which took place for the third time in Sydney in October 2018. Welcoming more than 7,600 delegates from 150 countries, the conference took full advantage of the fantastic meeting facilities in the city and was held at the International Convention Centre Sydney (ICC Sydney). It also includes the World Congress of Accountants, which took place in November 2018 and attracted more than 5,700 of the world’s leading accounting and finance experts from 131 countries, representing 175 professional accounting organisations from across the globe. The Congress addressed the theme of Global Challenges, Global Leaders and explored accountancy jobs of the future and global influences such as digitalisation, artificial intelligence, Blockchain and cybersecurity. And in 2019, Sydney hosted the World Forum for Foreign Direct Investment, which brought together more than 400 global business leaders and senior officials from 36 countries, who toured key investment precincts across Greater Sydney, including the Western Parkland City, Westmead Health, Education and Research Super Precinct and Sydney Innovation and Technology Precinct to explore business opportunities in defence, aerospace, start-up and tech, health and medtech, manufacturing, agribusiness, and education sectors. 

In addition to its proven experience, the team at BESydney is internationally connected, intellectually curious, and ready to make it easy for you to do business in Sydney, Australia and the wider region. Its network benefits from strong connections to government and a Global Ambassador program that comprises world leading experts, including business leaders from the financial and professional services sectors, who lend their support to confirm Sydney as one of the world’s premier locations for global industry meetings. 

Better yet, Sydney is open, COVID Safe and welcoming international visitors, so why not contact us to learn more about how we can help you stage your next global meeting.