The future of finance is decentralized, so how has New York City remained the center of America’s—if not the world’s—capital formation up until now, and what changes are we seeing?

To some degree, NYC’s historical dominance is a matter of inertia.

Inertia, though, is not what innovative companies thrive on; and so, the U.S. economy is beginning to see a shift to the South and West. These are the areas experiencing population influx and rapid growth in jobs. It was thus only a matter of time before the financial community established new exclaves there of innovation and capital.

Charlotte, N.C. has long been the nation’s second-most important banking center. The corporate home of both Bank of America and Truist Financial, Charlotte also serves as regional headquarters for such firms as Wells Fargo, Ally Financial, and the Bank of London.

More recently, The Blackstone Group and Icahn Capital Management have relocated offices to Miami¹. Another, Citadel, vacated its longstanding Chicago office space for new vistas in Miami as well, and Goldman and JPMorgan have simultaneously been building up their presence in South Florida.

While Citadel ascribed Chicago’s crime rate² as the reason for its relocation. Taken together, these moves reflect a broader pattern of firms investing where they have more control over how systems are built, staffed, and governed.

Dallas, TX, in particular, is an interesting case. It has long served financial firms as an outpost for their financial operations. Now, however, it is also becoming more of a strategic hub. The Dallas campus under construction for Goldman Sachs will house more than 5,000 professionals—many in front-office strategy, investment, and risk. At $500 million, the project ranks among the firms largest investments in real estate³in the last decade. Goldman is building this presence as a second headquarters, not just a regional outpost.

Nor is Goldman alone. JPMorgan Chase, Charles Schwab, Nasdaq, and even the New York Stock Exchange are all extending their physical and institutional footprint in Texas.

Lower taxes, a more relaxed regulatory environment, an increasingly skilled workforce, and a burgeoning economy that demands more financial services all make the South an attractive vista for former Wall Streeters—especially those who grumble about how little living space a seven-figure salary affords them in New York.

More than ever, the area now offers conditions that enable financial services firms to take a more deliberate, less reactive, role in their own growth planning. That shift allows Dallas, Miami and other large Sunbelt cities to reposition themselves from regional banking hubs to centers of financial strategy and execution.

From support role to strategic core

While we confine our discussion going forward to one state and one metropolitan area, Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, is emblematic of the hospitality the South has shown bankers and fund managers.

Texas became a financial powerhouse over the past couple of decades by housing the operational muscle behind some of the country’s largest firms. Employment from the investment banking and securities sectors grew 111% in the past two decades⁴. Today, Dallas–Fort Worth ranks second nationally only to New York in finance-related employment⁵.

Texas’ financial growth through the 2010s and the Covid era remained tied to operational throughput, with extensive expansions by Capital One, Charles Schwab, Fidelity, and others.

But that has been changing over the past few years, as the Lone Star State has increasingly become a hub for strategic thinking as well as operational efficiency. Such firms as Goldman Sachs have begun to place more strategic roles—investment, advisory, and risk of ownership—directly in Texas as well.

The work has shifted. Firms are now launching products, setting policy, and managing capital directly from Texas. These are permanent roles with strategic scope—and they signal that the state is offering far more than a base for back-office operations. It’s becoming a center of control.

Emergence of Texas-based financial institutions

Texas is now the launch site for new financial market infrastructure, as well as a destination for financial services firms. Exchanges that once concentrated their growth in legacy hubs are now building directly out of Dallas.

The Texas Stock Exchange (TXSE), backed by BlackRock, Citadel Securities, and Charles Schwab, is scheduled to begin trading in 2026⁶. With $161 million in funding, TXSE is the most well-capitalized exchange applicant in U.S. history. It will operate as a fully electronic exchange, accept dual listings and ETFs, and apply governance standards at the level of the Nasdaq. The exchange will exclude shell companies and lightly regulated issuers, signaling a focus on institutional-grade listings.

NYSE is planning to relocate its Chicago-based, all-electronic exchange⁷ to Dallas under the new name NYSE Texas as well. The move consolidates its electronic equities operations in a market where the legal and cost environments support long-term platform development.

Nasdaq is opening a regional headquarters⁸ in Dallas to support corporate clients and trading operations across the Southeast. The Dallas office will serve as a base for expanding Nasdaq’s listed company services and regulatory operations in the region.

Taken together, these three projects demonstrate a trend toward broader market modernization. All-digital platforms attract listings by innovative growth-oriented companies in the healthcare and energy sectors as well as tech. Still, the all-electronic exchanges are not high-tech just for the sake of being high-tech; they are built to compete against the legacy bourses in New York and other traditional financial hubs. Higher efficiency, combined with order-of-magnitude, lower floorspace and facilities costs, lead to pricing advantages which traders will be quick to notice.

With every additional build of market architecture, Dallas gains institutional weight—less as an alternative, and more as a node in the core system.

Structural advantages facilitating the shift

Even so, operational efficiency is still a selling point. Texas is offering firms more than just a cost advantage, even if that’s where most firms start. In Q1 of 2025, the average asking rent for office space in the Dallas–Fort Worth area was $22.15 per square foot⁹. In contrast, Midtown Manhattan's average asking rent stood at $83.04 per square foot¹⁰ during the same period.

New York still anchors capital markets' activity, but it has become a more complex environment to use as a primary base for growth. The high costs of operating in this state constrain footprint decisions. Regulatory layering slows internal approvals. Political shifts increase scrutiny on governance, even as firms work to standardize controls. These pressures make long-term planning more difficult—especially for teams tasked with building and scaling new business functions.

Texas, by contrast, is giving those teams more room to breathe. Firms are placing leadership roles in markets where the legal structure is stable, the cost base is predictable, and the risk of policy whiplash is lower. Investment, product, and oversight functions are being built in Dallas not because they’re less important—but because the conditions allow them to move faster, hold accountability locally, and scale with less chance of interruption.

Texas's ascendancy in the financial sector

It has been centuries since banks have named themselves after their hometowns: Bank of New York, Bank of Montreal, First National Bank of Omaha, and so on. Financial firms are clearly no longer defined by location. Further, today we have families as wealthy as the Morgans or Mellons of the Gilded Age, but they choose not to affix their names atop the pillars of some neo-classical institution. Rather, financial firms today choose to be recognized by the strength of their data, infrastructure, and ability to adapt at scale.

Firms are building core financial infrastructure in Texas to support long-range strategy. They are designing investment, risk, and oversight functions from the outset to operate inside a legal and cost environment that allows greater control.

These decisions inevitably will change the ways institutions organize themselves. Growth planning is now shaped by structural fit—where teams can operate without regulatory whiplash, where governance holds up over time, and where execution stays close to leadership. Finance in the US will likely continue to decentralize across key hubs. And Dallas has emerged as a major player in this movement. As one of a few markets where multiple favorable conditions align, “Y’all Street” is a contender from whom we should expect even more growth in the months and years to come.

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Sources

1. Wall Street South' beckons financial services firms, Investment News, January 09, 2024

2. Ken Griffin Moving Citadel From Chicago to Miami Following Crime Complaints, The Wall Street Journal, June 23, 2022

3. Inside Goldman Sachs' plans for a new Dallas campus, Business Insider, February 27, 2025

4. The Rise of Dallas: America’s Next Financial Powerhouse, World Economic Magazine, September 20, 2024

5. Wall Street banks propel Dallas to second behind NYC in number of finance workers, New York Post, December 29, 2023

6. Texas Stock Exchange Raises $161 Million, Bloomberg, January 31, 2025

7. The New York Stock Exchange to Launch NYSE Texas, ICE, February 12, 2025

8. Nasdaq Deepens Its Commitment to Texas, Nasdaq, March 20, 2025

9. Dallas/Fort Worth Office Figures Q1 2025, CBRE, April 10, 2025

10. Manhattan Midtown Office Figures Q1 2025, CBRE, April 8, 2025