Melbourne for Financial Services

Why Melbourne for Financial Services - Melbourne is our head office in Australia, but Melbourne also does play a role in our global business. In particular, we do leverage our expertise in Melbourne for our Asian business.

The Australian market generally is a very dynamic and fast-growing market -- strong, stable and sophisticated.

We have 30 offices through the Asia-Pacific region. Australia's the largest part of our business in Asia-Pacific.

We cover some of our clients in Asia from Australia because this is where we've got the expertise.

Of the very large Australian funds management market, around 60% of institutional investors, in fact, are based in Melbourne.

The critical mass of the funds management sector in Melbourne means that there's a deep talent pool. People you attract in Melbourne, not only are they highly skilled, but they tend to be very loyal.

We get lots of people from London, New York, Chicago, Toronto who want to come here. Every time they come on a two-year secondment they never seem to go home. Australia's managed to generate the fourth largest pool of invested funds globally and the Australian financial services industry continues to set the standard.

I think the most exciting thing in the financial services sector in Australia is its growth.

When you look globally and we've got a global business, it's one of the few markets that's growing very, very quickly.

We've commissioned a new building in Docklands that we'll move into in 2013 and will be the third largest building after New York and London.

One of the things that Mercer introduced in recent years has been the Melbourne Mercer Global Pensions Index. That's something that the Victorian government has supported us on.

And that's a great initiative that enables global comparison of the sustainability and adequacy of different global pension schemes.

It highlights the fact that great thinking about financial services takes place in Melbourne and the Victorian government is a place where this is encouraged and supported.

JP Morgan Asset Management has very aggressive growth plans for Australia.

In an era where global growth is low, we've managed to have a business which both is growing fast, is operating effectively, is profitable and stands out as being currently the most successful of all our global businesses.

We've brought global portfolio managers that were previously based in London back to Australia, so we really see Melbourne as being, not just a hub for Australia, but it's a hub to grow our business across Asia. Just as you build critical mass, you really start to enjoy the growth that comes from that as a hub.

It's a large and growing and sophisticated market, so it really is an exciting market to be a part of.

http://www.invest.vic.gov.au/financial-services

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News & Politics

Tags:

• Melbourne
• Financial Services
• global business
• Australian market
• Asia Pacific region
• institutional investors
• funds management sector
• Australian financial services
• Victorian government
• JP Morgan Asset Management
• Franklin Templeton Investments