Financial services sector tops UK growth tables

The UK’s financial industry has grown faster than any other UK business sector over the past ten years, official figures report.

UK banking and finance growth outpaced all other business sectors in the period 1996 to 2006, according to National Statistics’ Economic and Labour Market Review, published this week. The output of the sector grew by 76.4 per cent over the decade, compared with 43.5 per cent for the services sector as a whole.

The British Bankers’ Association said these figures bring further confirmation of the importance of the financial sector to the UK economy: it currently accounts for around 9.4 per cent of the UK’s GDP.

BBA Chief Executive Angela Knight said: “Financial services are the powerhouse of the UK economy: a massive contributor to the Exchequer through tax, an employer of more than a million people directly and one of the UK’s last acknowledged world-leading industries. Financial companies directly pay £12 billion in tax, their employees pay £15 billion in income tax and the sector currently contributes over £100 billion annually to UK economic growth.

“Our industry has suffered reputational hits in the past year – not least the images of queues outside Northern Rock which flashed across the globe. These figures serve as a sharp reminder of the fact that in spite of these well-publicised problems we have built a world-beating industry.”