London and New York in tight race to be world’s top financial hub

London and New York are locked in a tight-race in the fight to become the world’s most dominant financial hub.

The latest Global Financial Centre’s Index from Z/Yen showed both cities retained their respective spots in new rankings, with each of their scores inching up by a singular point.

New York topped the list at 767, shortly followed by London at 766.

Hong Kong and Singapore came in third and fourth, with a singular rating point between each of the top four.

But the top four stretched further above their rivals, with fifth place falling behind by ten points as the next 30 hubs all saw their ratings dropped. The average rating across all centres was down nearly two per cent.

Professor Michael Mainelli, chairman of Z/Yen and former Lord Mayor of London, said: “The significant gap in ratings between the leading four centres and the rest implies there is no paradox of increasing concentration on fewer safe centres during a period of increasing deglobalisation.”

The latest index predated war breaking out in the Middle East. Mainelli said the “economic shocks” triggered by the conflict would likely “materially affect” future editions.

London in hot seat over regulation

It comes as the report highlighted the most important factor to development of financial centres was “predictability” followed by the speed of “regulatory response, flexibility and the quality of regulation”.

In the UK, the pace of the government’s deregulation mission has came under scrutiny with Sir Keir Starmer expressing his own frustrations with red tape.

“Every time I go to pull a lever there are a whole bunch of regulations, consultations, arms-length bodies, that mean the action from pulling the lever to delivery is longer than I think it ought to be,” Starmer has said

Nikhil Rathi, chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority, told the Treasury Committee in December that the watchdog was “moving as fast as [it] can” to meet the government’s push to ‘regulate for growth’.

“What we’ve seen a little bit in the debate in our political economy has been a lot of focus on what regulators should do, and I understand that, and we’re seeking to lead and lean in,” he said.

“I would say that pace and timetables – perhaps in a statutory timetable for where the Treasury may be able to move quicker – may be no bad thing, because we often have to wait.”