The competitive edge

One of the inescapable ironies of development is the increasing overall inclination towards similarity of products, ideas, cultures, economies and even life styles. For while development seeks to raise individual living standards and expand national performance indicators, globalisation as a concept and in practice leans towards the creation of a movement in the direction of uniformity in many spheres of national activity. Within such a milieu of competing aspirations and yet increasingly similar product offerings, it becomes a sine qua non for individual jurisdictions to define a competitive edge as a means and a guarantee of success in the arena of financial services. Such an edge, however, is ineffectual unless it portrays the jurisdiction in its totality. For the edge is secured not in the mere number of financial service products or physical attributes within the jurisdiction but rather in the unique and distinctive quality of those wide and varied...