Foreign Banking in the American Urban System of Financial Organization

Abstract

Foreign banks in the United States are major sources of investment capital and producers of financial services. Foreign banking is localized in a few metropolises. Six major international banking centers serve as American nodes in the system of global flows of capital and financial services. The asset structure, size, type, and national origins of foreign banks in these centers reveal investment motives. New York is the primary foreign banking complex. The magnitude of its foreign banking segment together with the diversity of bank sizes, nationalities, and types contributes to its distinctiveness. Its traditional role as the focal point of interaction between the securities and the domestic banking industries has been augmented by rapid expansion of foreign banks in the 1980s. In Chicago, foreign banking has grown together with its fast-growing financial markets. Foreign banking in Los Angeles and San Francisco is dominated by Japanese banks, which are mainly engaged in traditional bank lending. They intensified oscillations in the Californian economy by financing the real estate overbuilding of the 1980s. In the Southeast, foreign banking has rapidly increased in Atlanta and Miami. Atlanta's foreign banks are mainly engaged in commercial and industrial lending rather than in production of global financial services. Miami's much larger number of small foreign banks produce services related to flows of trade and investment between the United States, South America, and Europe.

Key words:

• foreign banks
• United States
• urban system
• financial services
• globalization