Financial services are the economic services provided by the finance industry, which encompasses a broad range of businesses that manage money, including credit unions, banks, credit-card companies, insurance companies, accountancy companies, consumer-finance companies, stock brokerages, investment funds, individual asset managers, and some government-sponsored enterprises.

As consulting firms grow larger, in a modern, globalised and interconnected business environment, a lot of times they will take what could be seen as similar to a 3rd party position, as it relates to one or more clients, that are engaged in b2b business. The consulting firm utilises its networking capabilities (due to its high number of clients, often within diverse markets) to connect actors in for example M&A activity.[12] Since the private sector isn’t allowed to use officials, nor attempt to create any such equivalent as this would be regarded as antitrust behaviour, there is a natural demand for other such private or business services to offer an alternative to this type of coordinating services.

The impact of consulting firms on local businesses in emerging economies do not always have positive effects.[16] One reason for this is that firms in emerging economies suffer from the inferiority of their technologies and innovation capabilities, thus, although they have access to consulting firms, they cannot make the most of the advice given. Advice given by consulting firms to clients may not be used efficiently as clients firms in emerging markets tend to suffer due to a lack of infrastructure, organisation, and education. Another reason firms in emerging economies struggle to effectively use consulting services is that innovation is very costly and risky.