Written by Huw Jones
LONDON (Reuters) – London remains the world's top financial center, an independent study by the City of London showed on Wednesday, as New York, tied with the British capital last year, slipped to second place.
Bottlenecks in business activity caused by Brexit, which largely cut the City of London from the European Union, and the coronavirus pandemic have eased, with more efficient regulations, immigration policy and the return of workers to the office helping London All business ecosystems have improved, the study said. Said.
“While London has seen a decline in capital markets activity and assets under management, it ranks first for both sustainable finance and people and skills,” the City of London said in a statement.
“New York leads the way in technology and broad financial activity, but its score has declined this year as the coronavirus bull market was halted by high inflation and sharply rising interest rates.”
In other surveys, such as Z/Yen, New York far outperformed London and remained in second place, ahead of Singapore and Hong Kong.
But with UK-based companies like chip designer ARM opting to list in New York rather than London, the Citi investigation is enough to allay fears in the post-Brexit financial sector. It may not be.
The U.S. stock market also hit record highs over the past week as investors bet on lower U.S. interest rates later this year, with economic growth outpacing major international peers including Britain.
Britain has embarked on a series of financial reforms to make listing in London more attractive and direct pension funds to growing companies to increase market liquidity.
Thanks to these reforms, the City of London took the top spot in the survey with an overall competitiveness score of 59, but this was down from last year's score of 60 due to a reduction in fund assets under management and fewer foreign listings. said.
New York fell three points to 57.
City of London policy director Chris Hayward said further reforms were needed because British banks faced much higher tax rates than their US rivals.
Singapore once again dropped three points to take 3rd place with 48 points, followed by Frankfurt in 4th place with 44 points and Paris in 5th place with 40 points.
The study is based on 101 indicators across five key competitiveness areas.
(Reporting by Hugh Jones; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
