Singapore attracted the largest amount of financial services foreign direct investment (FDI) of all Asian emerging markets during the 12 months to the end of January 2016. Just less than $1.1bn reached the city-state's financial centre in the period, according to estimates by greenfield investment monitor fDi Markets. Shanghai is a close second, with inflows of $1bn. Both figures have shrunk compared with 2014, when Singapore recorded $1.4bn of inflows and Shanghai, the leading financial services hub in that year, saw more than $16bn of FDI inflows.
Hong Kong remains the third most attractive city for investment, although inflows into the city-state also diminished, decreasing to $801.9m from $988m in 2014. Bangalore has slipped from fourth to 10th place, with $204.6bn of investment in 2015 – less than one-quarter of what it recorded in 2014. Generally, investor enthusiasm for financial hubs in developing Asia has quietened: the top 10 centres attracted a total of $5bn, compared with the $7.4bn they attracted a year earlier.
This trend is mirrored in the outward FDI tables, with aggregate outflows for the region’s top 10 hubs at $4.9bn, compared with $6.1bn in 2014. Taipei leads the most recent outward investment ranking with $1.2bn. It displaced Seoul, which now sits in second place.
The composition of the table is similar to last year’s, with only two newcomers: Port Vila and Jakarta. Kuala Lumpur and Bangalore, previously in eighth and 10th place, respectively, slipped off the 2015 ranking. Port Vila, the capital of Vanuatu in the South Pacific, may seem an unusual source of financial services investment. It owes its place in the ranking to Bitcoin specialist NextBank, headquartered in the city, which is spending $229.8m on launching operations in China, Malaysia, Russia and Europe.
