According to the index, London leads New York in all five areas of competitiveness: people, business environment, market access, infrastructure and general competitiveness. London and New York are well ahead of the two strongest Asian centres of Hong Kong and Singapore, which occupy third and fourth places respectively.

Zurich, a financial centre strongly focused on the two niche sectors of private banking and asset management, is in fifth place, just ahead of Frankfurt in sixth. The two leading Asian centres are well ahead of Tokyo (ninth), and the two Chinese centres of Shanghai (24th) and Beijing (36th). Paris is now just outside the top 10 in 11th place, only three points behind Geneva. The GFCI evaluates the competitiveness of 46 financial centres worldwide. It is updated regularly to identify changes in financial centre competitiveness.

TABLE 1: TOP 10 FINANCIAL CENTRES COMPARED

TABLE 2: THE GFCI FINANCIAL CENTRE RATINGS

TABLE 4: COUNTRY RANKINGS BY BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT INSTRUMENTAL FACTORS AND TABLE 5: CORPORATE&PERSONAL TAX RATES