An official website of the United States government. 
News Release 16-134
Inv. No(s). 332-345
Contact: Peg O'Laughlin, 202-205-1819
The United States is the world's largest services market and was the world’s leading exporter and importer of services in 2014, reports the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) in its new publication Recent Trends in U.S. Services Trade, 2016 Annual Report.
The USITC, an independent, nonpartisan, factfinding federal agency, compiles the report annually. Each year's report presents a qualitative and quantitative overview of U.S. trade in services and highlights some of the service sectors and geographic markets that contribute substantially to recent services trade performance.
This year’s report focuses on financial services and includes chapters on three specific industries: banking services, insurance services, and securities services. Each chapter analyzes global market conditions in the industry, examines recent trade performance, and summarizes the industry’s outlook.
The 2016 report adds new interactive graphics that allow users to view and refine, as they choose, the data presented.
The report describes trade in services via cross-border transactions through 2014 and via affiliate sales through 2013 (latest available data). Highlights include:
- In 2014, the value of U.S. commercial services exports was $690.1 billion (14 percent of global services exports), while imports totaled $453.3 billion (9 percent of global services imports). Preliminary data also indicate that in 2015, U.S. services exports increased to $730.6 billion, while imports rose to $467.1 billion.
- From 2013 to 2014, U.S. cross-border services exports rose close to 4 percent (down slightly from 5 percent in 2012–13), while U.S. services imports grew 3 percent (virtually unchanged from the previous year). Financial services accounted for 15 percent of exports and 15 percent of imports, resulting in a surplus of $35.1 billion in this subsector in 2014.
- Within the services sector, sales by foreign affiliates of U.S. firms -- the leading channel by which many U.S. services are delivered to foreign markets -- rose by 3 percent to slightly more than $1.3 trillion in 2013. Financial services accounted for about 20 percent of total sales by U.S.-owned foreign affiliates.
- The contribution of private sector financial services to U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) was $1.2 trillion in 2015, accounting for nearly 9 percent of total U.S. private sector GDP. The output of these services grew by 2.6 percent in 2015, slightly slower than the GDP growth in the private sector (2.8 percent). Among the financial services industries, the GDP of rental and leasing services grew the fastest in 2015 at 9.4 percent, followed by insurance services (3.2 percent), and banking services (1.2 percent) while securities services declined by 1 percent.
- Financial services accounted for 5.7 percent of total private sector employment in 2015, or 6.4 million full-time equivalent (FTE) employees -- a share that has remained stable since 2010. Employment in banking services represented almost 40 percent of this total, followed by insurance services (39 percent). Labor productivity in financial services grew slowly during 2010–2015, with an average output per worker of $192,110 in 2015. Wages in financial services were the second highest of any services sector, with workers earning on average $99,672 in 2015, nearly twice the average wage for the private sector as a whole.
- Financial services are facing significant challenges from digital technologies and in navigating the post-recessionary financial landscape of increased regulation and low interest rates. U.S. financial services firms have adapted by incorporating new financial technologies into their operations, but also face rising cybersecurity risks. In addition, the growth of the Chinese financial system has increased competition for U.S. banks while at the same time creating an attractive market for U.S. securities firms.
- The USITC hosted its ninth annual services roundtable on November 5, 2015. The discussion, summarized in the report, focused on evolution and effectiveness of services trade provisions in existing trade agreements, and the impact of digital technologies on the cross-border provision and liberalization of services.
Recent Trends in U.S. Services Trade, 2016 Annual Report (Investigation No. 332-345, USITC publication 4643, September 2016) is available on the USITC's Internet site at https://www.usitc.gov/publications/332/pub4643.pdf.