Switzerland wins the beauty parade as the most attractive residence for the world’s wealthy, who appear unfazed by the relentless legal and rhetorical assault on the Alpine country’s famed bank secrecy laws by countries such as the US, according to a new report by Scorpio Partnership, the wealth management consultants.

Scorpio’s inaugural Mobile Residency Index, based on a number of qualitative issues and quantitative measures such as economic stability, tax and immigration laws, availability of quality housing and security, ranks jurisdictions on a scale of 0 to 1. The consultancy carried out more than 400 qualitative interviews during 2008 to April 2009.

At a time when countries such as the UK are proposing to set new, higher-rate income taxes on the wealthy to repair ravaged public finances, there is even more focus on the advantages and drawbacks of different offshore financial jurisdictions.

Switzerland carries the highest overall score of 0.8, while Guernsey comes at the bottom of the list of 11 featured centres, at just over 0.5. In second place, in terms of most desired destination for the wealthy, is London, at more than 0.7, although its status is under threat from the government’s proposed tax increase, Scorpio said in its report.

“To the mobile wealthy, Switzerland is still very nearly all things to all people. Right across the spectrum of criteria it scores well in this Index, offering the mobile wealthy the headline fiscal incentive as well as all the underlying criteria such as stability, employment and business opportunities, infrastructure and education for their children,” Stephen Wall, director at Scorpio, said.

In declining order of ranking, were Switzerland, London, Singapore, New York, Hong Kong, Jersey, Cayman, Isle of Man, Monaco, Dubai and Guernsey.

Scorpio said London retained its status just behind that of Switzerland because the UK capital had a “inherently strong position vis-á-vis its competitors and is undoubtedly still the dominant centre internationally for the mobile wealthy community at all levels”.

Singapore’s ranking in third place, meanwhile, demonstrated how the Asian centre had risen fast as a destination for the mobile wealthy, the report said.

“What is also abundantly clear is a clear disctinction between the large “all-in” global centres such as Switzerland and London and the smaller niche centres such as Jersey, Guernsey, Isle of Man, Cayman and Monaco,” the report said.