Financial centre of the 19th century. After 1870, Berlin and New York grew to become major financial centres mainly serving their national economies. An array of smaller international financial centers found market niches, such as Amsterdam, Brussels, Zurich, and Geneva. London remained the leading international financial center in the four decades leading up to World War I. Since then, London and New York have developed leading positions in different activities and some non-Western financial centres have grown in prominence, notably Tokyo, Hong Kong and Singapore. In Asia, Tokyo emerged as a major financial centre in the 1980s as the Japanese economy became
Independent Financial Centre of the Americas through independence, responsiveness, efficiency and transparency. An internationally recognised regulatory authority is presently being established to regulate the Centre with complete independence from political and commercial influences, and the Centre itself. A new legal framework is currently being proposed to the Congress of the Dominican Republic to grant an enabling law which will permit the formation of a new jurisdiction in 2006. The centre's regulatory framework is being tailored directly to guidelines laid down recently by the Financial Action Task Force, an intergovernmental body formed to combat money laundering. The centre's regulatory arrangements – outline proposals for which are being