New research puts London at the top of an index comparing the competitiveness of 46 of the world’s financial centres. The Global Financial Centres Index showed London and New York as the only two truly global financial centres, ahead of Hong Kong and Singapore: Zurich was in fifth place, just ahead of Frankfurt. London is currently ranked ahead of New York by five points and led in all five areas of competitiveness; people, business environment, market access, infrastructure and general competitiveness. But the report highlighted widespread concerns about the UK tax regime, relative to its competitors, adding to anecdotal evidence from business leaders that companies are looking to more tax-favourable jurisidctions from which to operate. The study was conducted by Z/Yen for the City of London Corporation with additional data from PricewaterhouseCoopers. It is the first of what will be a biannual index of competitiveness for 46 world financial centres, charting how they rate relative to each other on an ongoing basis. The index brings together the results of online surveys completed by financial services leaders and 47 separate indices of competitiveness. Further surveys will follow, incorporating greater geographical coverage and additional instrumental factors.