Who Exports Financial and Insurance Services
When a country sells services to the rest of the world, some of what it exports is finance: insurance premiums, reinsurance, fund management, banking fees, and the like. This measure — insurance and financial services as a share of total service exports in the balance of payments — captures how much of a country’s services trade is financial rather than tourism, transport, travel, IT, or business services. It is a composition measure, not a size measure: a high share means finance dominates the services a country sells, not that the country sells a large dollar amount of financial services. A small island with little else to export can post a higher share than a global banking centre.
Across the 176 economies with World Bank data on FinStatGlobe, the spread is enormous: from 94.1% in Libya (2023) down to 0% in Mauritania (2023). Because this is a share of service exports, that gap reflects how concentrated each economy’s services trade is in finance — and the very top of the table is shaped as much by what is missing from the denominator as by the strength of the financial sector. Where a country exports almost nothing but financial and insurance services, the share approaches 100% even if the absolute flows are modest. All figures are observed values cited with their data year (mostly 2024, a few lagged to 2022–2023); none are projections.
The finance-export hubs
The top of the table mixes genuine financial centres with denominator-driven outliers. Libya’s 94.1% (2023) is the clearest example of the latter: with oil dominating goods exports and little tourism or transport services to sell, financial and insurance services make up almost the entire — and small — services-export line. The offshore financial centres behave similarly: in Luxembourg (59.8%, 2024) and the Cayman Islands (55.2%, 2024), finance is the export economy, so it swamps the services mix. Read these shares as concentration, not scale.
| Rank | Economy | Finance share of service exports | Data year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Libya | 94.1% | 2023 |
| 2 | Luxembourg | 59.8% | 2024 |
| 3 | Cayman Islands | 55.2% | 2024 |
| 4 | Sierra Leone | 32.7% | 2024 |
| 5 | Bahrain | 31.3% | 2024 |
| 6 | Liberia | 30.3% | 2024 |
| 7 | Nigeria | 28.4% | 2024 |
| 8 | Hong Kong | 26.9% | 2024 |
| 9 | United Kingdom | 24.2% | 2024 |
| 10 | Ghana | 21.9% | 2024 |
Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators (BX.GSR.INSF.ZS).
The list also includes economies that are recognisably financial exporters in their own right: Bahrain (31.3%, 2024) and Hong Kong (26.9%, 2024) are regional banking and insurance hubs, and the United Kingdom (24.2%, 2024) is one of the world’s largest financial-services exporters by volume — though even there, finance is under a quarter of total service exports. For the wider context on how financial services move across borders, see our note on trading financial services across borders.
The shape of the distribution
The cross-country distribution is heavily right-skewed. The median economy derives 3.1% of its service exports from finance and insurance, while the mean is 6.6% — the mean sitting at more than double the median is the signature of a long right tail, where a handful of high-share economies pull the average up while most countries cluster in the low single digits. By each economy’s latest value, 115 of the 176 derive under 5% of their service exports from finance. The field thins quickly above that: 31 economies fall in the 5–10% band, 17 in the 10–20% band, 10 in the 20–40% band, and only 3 sit at 40% and above.
| Finance share band | Economies |
|---|---|
| Under 5% | 115 |
| 5–10% | 31 |
| 10–20% | 17 |
| 20–40% | 10 |
| 40% and above | 3 |
Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators (BX.GSR.INSF.ZS), latest value per economy.
For most of the world, in other words, finance is a minor part of what they sell abroad. Services exports are dominated instead by travel, transport, and increasingly by IT and business services — the financial slice is the exception, not the rule.
Where the share is smallest
At the bottom of the table, financial and insurance services are a rounding error in the services mix. Ten economies post 0.1% or less, and the very bottom reads as 0% after rounding. Mauritania (0%, 2023), Angola (0%, 2024), and Palestine (0%, 2022) anchor the foot of the ranking. These are economies whose services trade is overwhelmingly travel, transport, or government services, with almost no exported finance.
| Rank (of 176) | Economy | Finance share of service exports | Data year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 167 | Iraq | 0.1% | 2024 |
| 168 | Sao Tome and Principe | 0.1% | 2024 |
| 169 | Papua New Guinea | 0.1% | 2024 |
| 170 | Gambia | 0.1% | 2024 |
| 171 | Ethiopia | 0.1% | 2024 |
| 172 | Israel | 0.1% | 2024 |
| 173 | Sint Maarten | 0.1% | 2023 |
| 174 | Palestine | 0% | 2022 |
| 175 | Angola | 0% | 2024 |
| 176 | Mauritania | 0% | 2023 |
Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators (BX.GSR.INSF.ZS).
Israel is the instructive case here: it sits at 0.1% (2024) near the very bottom not because it lacks a financial sector, but because its services exports are dominated by high-tech and IT services, which dwarf the financial line. A low share, like a high one, is a statement about composition rather than capability.
The regional picture
Regional medians are clustered tightly around the global figure, with one clear exception. North America stands well above the rest at a 19.3% median — though across only 3 economies — while the six other regions all sit between 2.1% and 3.3%. Sub-Saharan Africa (3.3%, across 40 economies) edges out the field despite holding several of the bottom entries, a reminder that the median can sit close to the global level even when a region spans both extremes.
| Region | Median finance share | Economies |
|---|---|---|
| North America | 19.3% | 3 |
| Sub-Saharan Africa | 3.3% | 40 |
| Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan & Pakistan | 3.2% | 19 |
| Europe & Central Asia | 3.1% | 50 |
| Latin America & Caribbean | 2.9% | 33 |
| South Asia | 2.6% | 5 |
| East Asia & Pacific | 2.1% | 26 |
Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators (BX.GSR.INSF.ZS), regional medians over latest value per economy.
By income group the pattern is uneven rather than monotonic. High-income economies post the highest median at 5.6% (65 economies), but low-income economies are next at 4.8% (18 economies) — pulled up by the likes of Sierra Leone and Liberia — ahead of upper-middle-income (2%, 47 economies) and lower-middle-income (1.7%, 45 economies) economies. The share, again, says more about what else a country can export than about how developed its finance sector is.
Long-run shifts
The long balance-of-payments series, with a median length of 30.5 years across the dataset, show some dramatic moves in both directions. Several economies have seen finance grow into a much larger slice of their services exports, while a handful of former high-share economies have seen it shrink. As ever, these shifts are about composition: a rising share can mean finance grew or that other service exports collapsed around it.
Where the share rose
| Economy | Earliest | Latest | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Libya | 11.6% (2000) | 94.1% (2023) | +82.5 pts |
| Sierra Leone | 0.1% (1991) | 32.7% (2024) | +32.6 pts |
| Nigeria | 0.3% (1990) | 28.4% (2024) | +28.1 pts |
| Liberia | 3.6% (2010) | 30.3% (2024) | +26.7 pts |
| Tajikistan | 1.7% (2002) | 21.2% (2024) | +19.5 pts |
| Ghana | 2.4% (1990) | 21.9% (2024) | +19.5 pts |
Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators (BX.GSR.INSF.ZS), earliest vs. latest observation per economy.
Libya’s climb from 11.6% (2000) to 94.1% (2023) is the steepest in the dataset at +82.5 pts, and it illustrates the denominator effect plainly: as conflict and oil dependence hollowed out other service exports, the financial line came to account for nearly all of a shrunken total. The rises in Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and Ghana reflect both growing financial sectors and changing export mixes.
Where the share fell
| Economy | Earliest | Latest | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| South Sudan | 52.3% (2014) | 9.8% (2023) | -42.5 pts |
| Ireland | 26.6% (2005) | 8.8% (2024) | -17.8 pts |
| Colombia | 16.5% (1990) | 1.3% (2024) | -15.2 pts |
| Honduras | 11.4% (1990) | 0.7% (2024) | -10.6 pts |
| Afghanistan | 8.2% (2008) | 0.4% (2020) | -7.8 pts |
| Ecuador | 8.7% (1990) | 1.8% (2024) | -7 pts |
Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators (BX.GSR.INSF.ZS), earliest vs. latest observation per economy.
Ireland is the most telling decline: its finance share fell from 26.6% (2005) to 8.8% (2024) not because financial exports collapsed, but because the explosive growth of computer and business-services exports diluted finance’s share of a much larger total. South Sudan, Colombia, and Honduras round out the steepest falls. For the broader picture on how firms fund and trade these services, see our note on capital and business finance and our insurtech category.
Sources & method
All figures are observed values from the World Bank’s World Development Indicators, insurance and financial services as a share of commercial service exports (indicator code BX.GSR.INSF.ZS), expressed as a percent of service exports in the balance of payments. The ranking covers 176 economies, each at its most recent available observation, and is descending because a higher share is treated as the headline: rank 1 is the economy where finance and insurance make up the largest share of service exports and rank 176 the smallest. The cross-country median (3.1%) and mean (6.6%), the distribution bands, and the regional and income-group medians were computed by FinStatGlobe over each economy’s latest value. Risers and fallers compare each economy’s earliest and latest points in its multi-decade series (median series length 30.5 years). Because this is a composition share rather than a dollar amount, high readings — especially Libya’s 94.1% and the offshore centres — are driven as much by the small size or narrow makeup of total service exports as by the financial sector itself, and should be read as concentration, not scale. See our methodology for how derived datasets are built.