According to the International Trade Commission’s annual report on recent trends in U.S. services trade, the U.S. remained the world’s largest services market and was the world’s leading exporter and importer of services in 2022. This year’s report focuses on trade in financial services, which includes a wide range of activities responsible for facilitating monetary transactions, lending to consumers and firms, mobilizing and managing savings, providing liquidity in debt and equity markets, advising and underwriting corporate finance transactions, and developing instruments that manage risk.
The report includes a special section on the impact of higher inflation and interest rates, as well as two thematic chapters that focus on the use of digital and artificial intelligence technologies in financial services and discuss changing demand for financial services related to sustainability, weather events, and the expansion of capital markets in emerging economies. Key findings include the following:
- increasing digitalization has allowed banks to use advanced analytics in new ways throughout their operations; middle- and back-office functions are using AI to improve fraud detection, risk management, and credit approvals;
- insurance firms are continuing to digitalize their operations, including to sort claims and applications, calculate risk scores, and verify and complete software applications; insurers are also increasingly employing AI to aid pricing, claims processing, fraud detection, and underwriting
- securities firms such as investment banks and hedge funds have digitalized their processes, including through algorithmic trading strategies driven by machine learning and AI, and have introduced market innovations such as tokenized assets using blockchain technologies;
- banks have prioritized sustainability (as it relates to climate change, gender equality, and financial inclusion) in response to growing demand for sustainable investment products and the increasing number of international frameworks focused on these issues;
- global property and casualty insurance companies have experienced changing demand conditions, including an increase in global insured losses, driven by such factors as increased population and development in coastal and other vulnerable areas, increased insurable values of physical assets, and the incidence and location of extreme weather events; and
- securities markets in emerging economies, especially large ones like China and India, are seeing increased transaction volumes and a broader range of securities products because of increased incomes and demand for additional savings and investment opportunities.
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