Asia's standing in a ranking of global financial centers firmed thanks to burgeoning finance hubs in China.
The headline findings of the «Global Financial Centers Index» (GFCI) hardly bear reporting: Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, and Shanghai are the world's third, fourth, fifth, and sixth most significant hubs for finance.
All four major Asian cities were unchanged (see table below) from the last ranking in September compiled by London-based think tank Z/Yen Partners. More noteworthy? The second layer of Asian hubs is stealthily moving up the ranks, if not yet in top-ten territory. Shenzhen, for example, climbed two spots while Qingdao and Guangzhou moved a remarkable 14 and 38 ranks higher, respectively.
In February 2014, Qingdao gained approval from the State Council to build the Qingdao wealth management financial comprehensive reform pilot zone, which is the first one in the country characterized by wealth management. Since then, city officials have poured in efforts to develop the city's financial sector.
London, New York and Hong Kong came top, unchanged in their ranking. The survey among 2,300 professionals in the finance industry also illustrates global shifts, whereby Asia and America are making up ground compared with Western Europe (see table below).
Frankfurt and Luxembourg, two other traditional European centers, dropped nine and seven places, respectively. Meanwhile, Swiss banking is staring into the abyss: Zurich and Geneva have both dropped substantially over the past six months. The home of UBS and Credit Suisse placed 16, down seven, while the home of private banking dropped ten places and came 26th.
Hamburg, Munich, Monaco, Madrid, Paris and Jersey have gained in attractiveness. They seem to count among potential winners of the Brexit. The Swiss centers are doing relatively less well in rankings of reputation, human capital and infrastructure – they both rank outside the top 10 on the three counts. This will hurt the financial markets because Switzerland has always been proud of its excellence in those respects.
The rankings may not really reflect reality that well – after all, they each are being sponsored by a different financial market. This time, the turn was on Kazakhstan and its capital Astana, which was ranked for the first time and duly climbed to 88th out of 96 positions.
