West Yorkshire’s long heritage as a centre of building societies could help generate 15,000 financial services jobs in the region over seven years, according to a new forecast today.

It says the UK financial services sector could help create more than 260,000 new private sector jobs – with 15,000 in Yorkshire – by 2020.

Economists at business advisers PwC say that sustainable and well regulated growth in UK financial services could boost the UK gross domestic product by 2.3 per cent if the sector’s contribution to the wider economy rises by £50 billion by 2021.

Gary Shaw, financial services director at PwC in Leeds, said: “Our financial services industry has a critical role to play in growing the economy, both in the Yorkshire and across the UK as a whole.

“Across our region, the existence of one of the largest financial services sectors outside of London with a strong focus on insurance and building societies, clearly demonstrates our ongoing ability to attract high quality players and that we are ‘open for business’. We need to maintain this momentum and showcase these successes more.

“The links between financial services sector and other sectors are also strong.”

PwC warns a weaker performance by financial services could result in a smaller GDP rise of 0.2 per cent and only 12,000 extra jobs across all industries, including financial services.

Mr Shaw said: “There is no doubt that we need to reflect on the lessons learned following the credit crunch and do our utmost to limit the likelihood of future crises. However better regulation doesn’t necessarily mean more regulation and we perhaps need to see a bit of re-balancing in order to help unlock the industry’s potential in a sustainable and stable way.”