The Future of Finance

Emerging Opportunities

Evolution of the Greater Phoenix Market

In the 1980s and 1990s, firms nationwide began decentralizing various business functions. Services such as HR, payroll, finance, customer service and IT were relocated to emerging markets across the country that offered low cost land in suburban markets for developers to build new buildings with high parking ratios. Greater Phoenix emerged as one of these hubs, with nearly 10% of the workforce working in a call center, thanks to Phoenix’s low labor costs, growing labor force, modern infrastructure and temperate weather. Over time these operations have continued to evolve, creating full scale shared services and nerve centers – technologically sophisticated and highly integrated operation hubs – here. This has been shown through the strong wage growth as the industry has shifted. Twenty years ago, the average finance job paid just over $51,500 (about $82,000 in today’s dollars), with traditional call center wages even lower. The average wage is now around $105,000 in the finance industry, meaning wages have gone up by 20% even when factoring for inflation. Greater Phoenix has the opportunity to become a prime location for financial front office activities and should attract these employer hubs to the region in the next phase of strategic growth, which will further bolster this economic growth.

Future of Work and the Great Office Reset

The pandemic fundamentally changed how employers and employees viewed work from home versus work in the office. In 2022, Arizona ranked second-highest among all states in the percentage of establishments with employees working from home all the time.^[5] According to the Survey of Working Arrangements and Attitudes (SWAA) in September 2024, employees who are able to work remotely currently desire an average of three days per week to work from home. The only two sectors averaging more than two days per week of remote work are the information sector and finance and insurance, which currently offers the second-highest work from home days in practice at an average of 2.28 days per week.

On the other hand, at the time of producing this report several leading tech and finance companies including Amazon, HSBC, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs have made public declarations to bring employees back five days a week. This has created a flight to quality among certain office users — brought about by employers seeking to attract talent and entice employees back into the office with benefits such as collaborative space, walkable restaurants, fitness centers, and access to childcare — rendering high quality office space more desirable than ever. A new report by CBRE found that the most highly amenitized “prime” offices have a vacancy rate of only 17.5% compared to 22.8% overall in Greater Phoenix. Yet compared to other markets, Greater Phoenix has little of the highest-grade Class A+ office space. CBRE reported that approximately 2.1% of office building inventory in metro Phoenix is considered “prime.” Most of the region’s Class A space is suburban Class A, Class Aspace, or even space that was built during the proliferation of low-cost offices during the 1980s and 1990s mentioned above and would now be considered Class B in other markets. Greater Phoenix building owners could address the misalignment between existing and desired office space by upgrading some of the region’s abundant, less desirable Class A space.

National Fight for Finance Talent

CFO Magazine recently reported on a survey conducted by Avalara, a tax and compliance software provider, that found 84% of Chief Financial Officers report a talent shortage in their financing and accounting teams. Further compounding the issue, over a quarter of accountants and auditors are over the age of 55, meaning they will be eligible for retirement within the coming decade. Increasing complexity in the regulatory environment has led to the need for higher level talent and hands on experience.

Another shift in the industry’s talent occurred in 2018 when FINRA, the self-regulatory organization that oversees broker-dealers in the United States, changed the structure of the qualification exams for finance professionals. Prior to 2018, candidates would need to be sponsored for the Series 7 exam by a FINRA member firm or other applicable self-regulatory organization. This meant that employers either had a limited hiring pool by hiring individuals who already had a Series 7 license or had to take a greater risk on who they hired if they hired someone unlicensed and sponsored their exam, as employees were unable to work in finance roles unless they passed the exam.

In 2018 the exam was split into the Securities Industry Essentials (SIE) exam and Series 7 exam. The SIE is now open to anyone 18 and older including students and prospective candidates interested in demonstrating basic industry knowledge to potential employers, without needing to be sponsored by a FINRA firm.

This gives companies more security in hiring, as they can hire graduates who have finished their SIE exam and are more likely to pass the Series 7 exam. Companies can also use this as an opportunity to upskill employees who are not currently in financial roles, supporting them through the completion of the SIE and eventually sponsoring their Series 7 licensure. Maricopa Community College District now offers an SIE prep program at Scottsdale Community College to prepare students for the exam.

Fintech Sandbox

Arizona was one of the first states to offer a regulatory sandbox, allowing companies to test innovative financial projects or services in a limited environment without obtaining all authorizations typically required. Most credit-extending services are eligible for the program, along with innovative projects and services in money transmission and investment management and some blockchain and cryptocurrency services. Despite the groundbreaking possibility, full utilization of the Fintech Sandbox remains an opportunity for industry advancement. Only 13 companies are alums of the program, and only one is actively using it. Due to federal regulations, the Sandbox only provides safe harbor from state regulations, not federal regulations. There is no domicile requirement for companies to locate in Arizona to use the Fintech sandbox. However, this is not a significant roadblock as some companies that test here will locate here due to being exposed to Arizona’s friendly regulatory climate.

[1] For purposes of this report, the finance sector is defined as NAICS codes 521, 522, 523 and 525 and excludes insurance and real estate companies from the analysis. | [2] Location Quotient quantifies how concentrated employment is in a particular region compared to the US. The industry has a regional location quotient of 1.69, meaning the financial sector accounts for a larger share of employment in Greater Phoenix compared to the United States. | [3] Source: Maricopa Association of Governments | [4] Source: Table: Lightcast Q3 2024; FINRA; average earnings includes wages and benefits | [5] Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics 2022 | [6] Source: International Monetary Fund