Attracting some of the world’s leading financial services companies has made people from around the world stop and take notice of our province. The growth of this sector has spurred high-paying job opportunities for highly skilled people and has created just as many opportunities for local companies. Restaurants, taxi drivers and furniture movers are seeing a lot of activity from new companies coming here. This world-class growth has opened doors that would have been closed to us a few years ago.
It’s opened doors to the New York Stock Exchange where the Premier of Nova Scotia rang the closing bell and stood shoulder to shoulder with top financial executives. It’s opened doors for Citco Fund Services, the number one hedge fund administrator (8th HFMWeek Hedge Fund Administrator Survey) to make a second investment in Nova Scotia with a new IT development centre.
Opportunities have been explored, world-class deals have been announced, our province’s growth continues to be celebrated and it began with a phone call from NSBI. Don’t get us wrong - convincing the world’s leading financial services companies to choose Nova Scotia was a little more complex. We needed a strong value proposition and a growth strategy to back it up. We needed to show the industry that Nova Scotia had what they needed.
At NSBI, we go out and find opportunities, and for the financial services sector, Bermuda was the right place to begin. Nova Scotia has deeply rooted connections with Bermuda, and our history with the area gave NSBI a better understanding of the industry and its demands. With a highly concentrated and close-knit financial services community, it was clear to NSBI that we could position our province as a partner with Bermuda.
From the beginning, NSBI knew we couldn’t attract new investment to the province on our own. With the future sustainability of the sector on our minds, we developed the Managed Growth Initiative bringing together partners to retain skilled graduates, repatriate Nova Scotians and attract professionals here. We also created the Industry Growth Partnership, a group of more than 40 organizations focused on growing the financial services sector in a responsible and sustainable way.
By working together and working hard, we convinced Marsh, the world’s largest insurance broker (Business Insurance, 2007), Citco Fund Services and several other leading financial services companies that Halifax was the right location.
And that’s not all; This growth positioned Nova Scotia second only to Alberta for investment attraction (Site Selector Magazine). Trade publication Global Services also ranked Halifax as North America’s number one emerging destination for IT and business process outsourcing.
Nova Scotia has created an international buzz for itself. When we travel to places like New York or Grand Cayman, we meet top business executives who have heard about Nova Scotia and want to know more. At NSBI, we always want to know more about the opportunities that are out there. We want to do more because we know our province can achieve more. Building a world-class financial services sector required more than just a phone call from NSBI and I think we can all agree it’s been worth it.