{"id":54732,"date":"2026-09-24T09:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T07:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/frankfurt-main-finance.com\/?p=54732"},"modified":"2026-09-22T17:47:50","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T15:47:50","slug":"waifc-annual-meeting-2026-in-busan-new-members-clear-strategies-and-a-look-into-the-future-of-financial-centres","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/frankfurt-main-finance.com\/en\/waifc-annual-meeting-2026-in-busan-new-members-clear-strategies-and-a-look-into-the-future-of-financial-centres\/","title":{"rendered":"WAIFC Annual Meeting 2026 in Busan: New Members, Clear Strategies and a Look into the Future of Financial Centres"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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The Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the World Alliance of International Financial Centres (WAIFC) took place this year in Busan, South Korea. It was the alliance\u2019s first major meeting in South Korea. The host was the Busan Finance Center (BFC), which welcomed participants not only at the conference centre but also during a visit to the Busan Port Authority. The South Korean metropolis presented itself as a major maritime and economic hub that, as a gateway to global trade routes, plays a central role for the Korean economy.<\/p>

Personnel and Structural Decisions<\/strong><\/p>

At the AGM, important personnel and structural decisions were made. The network welcomed two new members: the Tashkent International Financial Centre (TIFC) and the International Financial Centre of Oman (OIFC). This strengthens WAIFC\u2019s presence in Central Asia and the Middle East.<\/p>

In addition, four new representatives were elected to the Board: Ahmet Ihsan Erdem (Istanbul Financial Center), Alhussain Al Qalhati (IFC Oman), Mansoor Rashid Al-Khater (Qatar Financial Centre) and Bakhtiyar Tleubekov (Astana International Financial Centre). Members also elected Miles Celic OBE (TheCityUK) as the new Chair and Rocky Tung (Hong Kong Financial Services Development Council) as Deputy Chair; their terms begin at the end of 2026. Pawel Widawski (Future Finance Poland) was appointed as the new Treasurer.<\/p>

A special honour was bestowed on Hubertus V\u00e4th, the current Deputy Chair of WAIFC and Managing Director of Frankfurt Main Finance, and Said Ibrahim (Casablanca Finance City): they were named the Alliance\u2019s first honorary members, in recognition of their services as founding members.<\/p>

Substantive Milestones and Regional Initiatives<\/strong><\/p>

A central outcome of the meeting was the publication of the new white paper entitled \u201cThe Impact of Financial Centers\u201d. Coordinated by Casablanca Finance City, the document provides a common framework (59 indicators across 24 thematic areas) for measuring the contribution of financial centres to their economies. The data show that members\u2019 activities support more than 4.2 million jobs and generate more than USD 750 billion in added value.<\/p>

In addition, African members came together for a WAIFC Africa Chapter roundtable to discuss regional cooperation and sustainable growth. Progress was also made at the institutional level: the Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC) and Casablanca Finance City (CFC) each signed separate memoranda of understanding (MoUs) with the Busan Finance Center. Another example of practical networking was the Uzbekistan Business Forum organised by TIFC, which connected international capital with opportunities in Uzbekistan.<\/p>

Looking Ahead: Topics, Research and Dialogue<\/strong><\/p>

The substantive dialogue continued at the BIFC Global Finance Symposium 2026. Reflecting Busan\u2019s maritime setting, one focus was on the \u201cBlue Economy\u201d and maritime finance. Kitack Lim, Secretary-General Emeritus of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), delivered the keynote address. In a high-level WAIFC roundtable, participants discussed the competitiveness of financial centres, the role of artificial intelligence and the need for international cooperation.<\/p>

Another highlight was the awarding of the 2026 Young Academic Award. Natalie Playford (University of Toronto) took first place, followed by Won Woo (Hanyang University) and the team of Wiktoria Chrzanowska and Adam Dejda (SGH Warsaw School of Economics). Their award-winning papers addressed topics such as gender clauses in development finance, AI governance and tokenised capital markets.<\/p>

Conclusion and Outlook<\/strong><\/p>

The AGM in Busan underscored WAIFC\u2019s growing global importance and the relevance of exchange between established and emerging financial centres. The network\u2019s next stops are already set: in spring 2027, members will meet in Nairobi for a Board Meeting and an Extraordinary General Meeting, before the next Annual General Meeting is held in Istanbul in autumn 2027.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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In September, the Busan Financial Center hosted the annual general meeting of the World Alliance of International Financial Centers (WAIFC) in Korea.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":54733,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"template-fullwidth.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[106,241,105],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-financial-centre","category-international","category-top-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-10-01 12:33:16","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/frankfurt-main-finance.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/frankfurt-main-finance.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/frankfurt-main-finance.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frankfurt-main-finance.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frankfurt-main-finance.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54732"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/frankfurt-main-finance.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54742,"href":"https:\/\/frankfurt-main-finance.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54732\/revisions\/54742"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frankfurt-main-finance.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/frankfurt-main-finance.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frankfurt-main-finance.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frankfurt-main-finance.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}