Can Scotland learn to love the financial services sector again?
It is going to have to, according to financial services trade group TheCityUK, which holds a seminar in Glasgow tomorrow for business and politicos. No doubt the subject of Stephen Hester's bonus will come up, although the organisation is ready with lines about how foreign banks are paying a lot more, and that the bonus pot is less than before.
Chris Cummings, chief executive, is on a mission to break down the perception of financial services as an elite phenomenon confined to the Square Mile, pointing out that "about two-thirds of the jobs are outside the M25".
"The British public have taken a good hard look and asked why we should be proud of our financial sector? Our role is to communicate the good things that financial services does, and do more to improve the value of the sector to others, to help us to explain why we are an asset."
The organisation might get a rough ride on its opposition to a financial transaction tax, which has plenty of supporters in Scotland, some of whom are on the guest list. Cummings points out that the French and German industries are also against it: "It is remarkable that we would look at a tax that reduces European GDP."
TheCityUK comes furnished with some impressive figures about the local market, showing that 12.1% of Scottish GDP is earned by financial and professional services, the highest proportion outside London (25.2%).
Glasgow Central, which often features on deprivation indexes, has the second-highest employment in financial and professional services outside London, with 33,900 people. Behind Manchester, but ahead of Birmingham, Leeds, and of course, Edinburgh. Does the body that produces these statistics think they will be affected for good or ill by independence? "That is a question for Scottish voters," the body says unsportingly, though the close links between the Scottish financial industry and the City are an unarguable contributor to Scotland having the highest GDP figures outside the southeast, as the Sunday Herald revealed last December.
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