GFCI 37 Headlines

• The 37th edition of the Global Financial Centres Index (GFCI 37) was published today by Z/Yen Group in partnership with the China Development Institute (CDI).
• New York held onto the top position in the index and has now been in first place since GFCI 24, published in September 2018.
• London remains in second place, and has closed the gap in the ratings with New York. Hong Kong retains third position ahead of Singapore.
• San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, Shanghai, and Shenzhen are unchanged in fifth to ninth positions. Seoul re-entered the top 10 centres in this edition of the index.
• There is little change in the ranking of the leading centres, with the top nine centres remaining unchanged. In the top 20 centres, Amsterdam rose nine places to 18th and Dubai rose four places to 12th position.
• The average rating across all centres was up just over 2%, which suggests stronger confidence in the financial sector in this period. The largest increase in average ratings was in Eastern Europe & Central Europe, at 2.48% and the lowest was in North America, where average ratings rose by 1.41%.
• US centres showed the lowest improvement across the world regions, after a period of growth following the downturn caused by Covid-19. This may suggest lower confidence in US financial services performance moving forwards.
• We have researched the key challenges facing international financial centres in the medium term. Geo-Political challenges are clearly seen as the most important risk, mentioned by 18% of respondents (lower than the 20% in GFCI 36). Competition from other centres and changing regional/national priorities were mentioned by 15% and 13% of respondents respectively.

The top 20 centres in GFCI 37 are shown in the table below.

Full details of GFCI 37 can be found at www.globalfinancialcentres.net.

Professor Michael Mainelli, Chairman of Z/Yen, said:

“Confidence in leading international financial centres remains strong, with a high degree of stability in the rankings. That said, the index period of GFCI 37 falls outside the new US administration. A slow down in US centres may indicate some projected decoupling from global markets.”

ENDS

Information For Editors

About GFCI 37

GFCI 37 rates 119 financial centres across the world combining assessments from financial professionals with quantitative data which form instrumental factors.

GFCI 37 uses 31,314 financial centre assessments collected from 4,946 financial services professionals who responded to the GFCI online questionnaire. The GFCI is updated regularly, and ratings change as assessments and instrumental factors change.

To find out more about sponsorship opportunities, joining the Vantage Financial Centres network, further research, and bespoke reports on individual financial centres, please contact us.

Previous Editions

Previous editions of the GFCI can be accessed at www.longfinance.net/programmes/financialcentrefutures/global-financial-centres-index/publications.html

Long Finance

The GFCI is part of the Long Finance initiative (www.longfinance.net), which undertakes research programmes on Financial Centre Futures, Sustainable Futures, Distributed Futures, Eternal Coin, and Meta-Commerce. Please get in touch for more details on Long Finance.

Contact

For more information please email Mike Wardle at mike_wardle@zyen.com or by phone on +44 (0) 7880 737319.