Rethinking international financial centres through the politics of territory: Renminbi internationalisation in London’s financial district

This paper revisits canonical thinking on international financial centres (IFCs) that understands them as being primarily sustained through: market liquidity; economies of competition and cooperation between financial and related professional services; and acting as interpretative nodes within global finance. In contrast, I explore the implications of foregrounding questions of power and politics in the (re)production of IFCs. Drawing on the case of the development of offshore renminbi markets in London’s financial district, I argue the state plays a vital, yet comparatively neglected, role in shaping the development and changing nature of international financial centres. In so doing, the paper calls for work in economic geography and cognate social sciences to understand finance as a political as well as an economic, social and cultural relation

Corporate Socially Responsible Practice by Banks in Singapore

Given many disasters due to climate changes, environmental degradation and human activities, such as the great Tsunami in Asia, The Tsunami in Japan (2011), forest-fires in Indonesia and many others, which negatively impact the daily life, health and income of millions of people, environmental protection and management is a collective responsibility of relevant stakeholders across countries. Adoption of corporate social responsibility (CSR) is one of the approaches which can help firms enhance their environmental performance. This chapter aims to revisit the concept of corporate social responsibility in the context of environmental protection, explore how banks practise CSR to protect the environment, using the banking sector in Singapore as a case study, and discuss policy implications on CSR practice to protect the environment at the corporate level. The secondary data for this study will be obtained from the annual reports and/or corporate social responsibility reports of six local banks and 26 foreign full banks in Singapore. The content analysis approach will be employed to investigate the CSR activities and practice of the banks. This chapter is significant because provides a better insight into the current CSR practice by the banking sector in Singapore to contribute to environmental protection