Reflecting back four decades ago
Rosemary Gallagher reflects on the launch of SFE to place Scotland on the financial map
A press release issued by the Scottish Development Agency (SDA) on the launch of Scottish Financial Enterprise (SFE) on 21 May, 1986 stated that the new organisation “is set to increase the impact of Scotland’s financial community on the international marketplace”.
It explained: “Specific objectives will include national and international promotion of the Scottish financial community and increasing awareness of its scale, range and expertise.”
Welcoming the news, Dr George Mathewson, then-chief executive of the SDA, said he believed SFE could be the necessary spark to help realise the undoubted potential of Scotland’s financial community.
“Action to strengthen the financial sector in Scotland will surely help develop our other industries,” he added.
SFE was the direct result of a report by a working party set up in 1985 to investigate ways of strengthening Scotland’s financial competitiveness.
At the press conference in Edinburgh to launch SFE, Sir Thomas Risk, then-Governor of the Bank of Scotland and a driving force behind the formation of the new body, said: “Scottish Financial Enterprise will represent a broad constituency, serving all those who provide finance and financial services and who exercise professional skills within Scotland.”
He added: “I say that we see Scottish Financial Enterprise as a symbol of the enterprise and skills to be found in Scotland and, most important, as a catalytic agent for exploiting new opportunities to the benefit of the country as a whole.”Sir Malcolm Rifkind, then Secretary of State for Scotland, commented: “World-famous for their canniness, we Scots have developed a financial enterprise second to none. Now we have the chance to co-ordinate our efforts more effectively; and to blow our trumpets more loudly…”Robin Leigh-Pemberton, Governor of the Bank of England at the time, added: “The resourcefulness and success of the Scottish financial community have been well-known for a long time, and it is a measure of the vision of those involved in this initiative that this launch takes place at a time of increased competition, as well as many changes.”Professor Sir John “Jack” Calman Shaw was appointed executive director of SFE in June, 1986. He said that the new organisation had to be “non-institutional, small, flexible, fast-moving and charged with enthusiasm”.He added: “Our role will be that of catalyst, stimulating Scottish activity and providing a supportive framework for collective action.”