Ireland has built a very successful international financial services industry over the last three decades and has been at the heart of the European Union for over forty years. Ireland is also a founding member of the Single Market and of the Euro.
From its origins in Dublins Docklands in 1987, the sector has now grown to become a national industry with a presence across the country.
Some of the factors that make Ireland an attractive and competitive location for international financial services, are its membership of the European Union, it highly skilled, English-speaking workforce, and the fact that is a common law jurisdiction.
Ireland's international financial services sectors is broad, and includes over 450+ firms in:
- Aviation Financing
- Banking
- Corporate Treasury Operations
- Fund and debt listing
- Insurance and Reinsurance
- Investment Management
- Investment Banking
- Payments
- Ratings Agencies
- Trading Platforms
Ireland has a strong and effective regulator through the Central Bank of Ireland which provides high quality, effective regulation and supervision and is fully embedded in the European System of Financial Supervision and the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM).
As the international financial services sector adapts to the rapid changes that new technologies create, a significant strength of Ireland is the combination of the deep domain knowledge in financial services, on the one hand, and technology capabilities, on the other hand. Alongside the growth of expertise in financial services since the 1980s, Ireland has grown a vibrant IT sector that includes all the main global firms in hardware, software and internet services..
- All the top 10 "Born-on-the-Internet" companies are in Ireland.
- Nine of the world's top 10 global software companies are in Ireland.
The result is that Ireland has a thriving ecosystem of entrepreneurs, innovators, and researchers in industry.
A significant competitive advantage that Ireland offers is a well-educated, highly skilled, flexible, internationally diverse and multilingual workforce. With 33 per cent of the population under 25 years old, Ireland has the youngest population in the EU, and over 50 per cent of those aged 30–34 have a third-level qualification – higher than the OECD average.
The Ireland for Finance strategy sets out a strong commitment to ensure that this advantage is retained and strengthened through collaboration between the financial services industry and the states education system across the full breadth of disciplines and knowledge domains that are needed in the industry, from school level, through university and postgraduate level, to upskilling and reskilling.