Nick Anstee

London has two mayors. One, a mop-topped former journalist, wields more power than anybody outside the Cabinet and many within it. The other, a sober accountant, spends a significant proportion of his year in office jetting around the world telling anyone who will listen what jolly fine chaps our bankers really are.

The job description of the Lord Mayor of London has certainly changed a bit since the days of Dick Whittington.

Although the process by which he is elected by the City’s aldermen remains steeped in tradition and a fair amount of power theoretically accrues to him, the role itself has become largely one of roving ambassador for London’s financial sector.

It is in his capacity as such that the current incumbent, Nick Anstee, visited Manchester in January to address members of networking organisation Pro Manchester about a new initiative, The City UK. We nabbed him beforehand.

“The City UK”, he explained, “is an embryonic promotional body which is supporting the financial services industry, and which the Corporation of London has pump-primed and is supporting on an ongoing basis.”

The initiative is the product, he continues, of two reviews: one chaired by Bob Wigley for Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, and the other produced by the Financial Services Global Competitiveness Group chaired by Sir Win Bischoff for Alistair Darling, Chancellor of the Exchequer.

“They both came to the same conclusion,” Anstee says. “That the financial services industry needs one trade body shouting off one hymn sheet, not a whole disparate group of individuals trying to fight for space.

“The City UK is not taking the City to the UK but taking in all the regional cities that have an interest in financial services and getting them to engage with us, to promote what we’ve got.

“We should be proud of what we’ve got in this country. Those in Manchester should be delighted we’ve got London because it becomes a catalyst as to what can happen up here.”

One of the biggest issues surrounding financial services post-crisis is, of course, regulation. Our conversation occurs before Barack Obama’s pronouncements on the banks in America but, when asked what changes we are likely to see, Anstee points to alreadyannounced proposals to do with liquidity, capital adequacy, orporate governance and the structuring of bonus payments.

He also says – and wry smiles may be permitted at this juncture – that, “Probably the biggest adjustment taking place is not necessarily through regulation. It’s through the banks’ own initiatives.

“So I think through this process they will have learned an enormous amount from what went wrong in their own respective organisations when it came to risk management.”

He is, in fact, probably right – your bank not lending you any money, or only at an exorbitant rate, and it building a strong balance sheet are not in any way mutually-exclusive.

In any event, Anstee’s real fear emanates from the other side of the Channel. He says, “There is a directive floating around – the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive – which impacts on the ability of funds to be deposited in London by non-nationalorganisations.

“A situation could happen where our fund managers cannot invest in the States if we start having to apply a directive which is actually inappropriate. The good news is that the debate is still out there and the directive is not in force – and the City is continuing to lobby.”

Talking of debates, what does the Lord Mayor say to those who claim finance plays too great a role in the UK economy.

“The argument about rebalancing is a spurious one,” he says – and the suggestion is clearly not one with which he has much patience. “The industry accounted for 8.3 per cent of GDP in 2007 and it accounts for 12.1 per cent of the total tax take.

“Why downscale a centre of excellence? People out there in China and Hong Kong are rubbing their hands at the prospect of seeing the demise and the dismantling of the financial services industry in London, knowing that they’re probably the likely recipients and beneficiaries of that.

“And if that’s what our Government want to do then go ahead and do it. Gift it to them.

“But they can’t afford to do that because of the contribution the financial services industry does and can make to our economy, which will help get us out of the deficit that we’ve got in this country.

“What you’ve actually got to get is a rebalancing. That doesn’t mean to say downscaling or downsizing – all of the emotive words that people are using. What you’ve got to do is to build up other businesses around it which the City, the financial services industry, can help promote.”