What portion of the finance industry was British prior to WWI?

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I'm not sure if the data is available to answer the enumerated questions very adequately. I'm also unsure on whether those are most historically relevant indicators of Britain's global financial power. That said, here are a couple of quick data points from sources you may find helpful, to start with.

This online encyclopedia article points out that:

In 1912 the City of London financed over 60 percent of the world’s trade through its discount markets for bills of exchange... [and] two thirds of global maritime insurance contracts were handled in Britain.

A chapter published by the World Bank states that:

British capital exports averaged 5 percent of GDP [from 1880 to 1914] and reached nearly twice that level toward the end of the period. The capital exports of the other leading creditor countries, France and Germany, were about half British levels.

Keep in mind that estimates of GDP for this period show that Britain was one of the largest economies overall.

Upvote:2

Regarding the importance of British exports of capital before World War I, "by 1913, about 50 percent of the capital investment throughout the world had been raised in London."

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