Asian cities climb financial hub rankings

The importance of Asian financial hubs continues to increase and narrow the gap with cities from the West.

Cities in Asia continue to demonstrate their importance as global financial centres and are fast taking on the well-established hubs in the West. Such Asian cities as Hong Kong, Singapore, and Seoul are closing fast on their Western competitors, according to the latest Global Financial Centres Index (GFCI).

The report showed that New York, London, Hong Kong, and Singapore remain the world’s leading financial centres and increased their ratings in the latest release. 11 out of the top 12 Asia/Pacific centres also saw a rise in their ratings and rankings, bringing them closer to competing with Western cities.

Busan witnessed the biggest increase in rating and followed by Shenzhen and Taipei. All of the Chinese centres rose and a new entry to the index, Dalian, was welcomed into 51st place.

“Busan is adopting a strategy specialising in maritime finance and derivatives based on the region’s industrial characteristics and the Korea Exchange,” said Suh Byung-soo, the mayor of Busan Metropolitan City, in the report.

New York maintained its position as the world’s leading financial centre for the second year running, but London was close behind in second place, refusing to let New York increase its lead of just one point.

San Francisco was the only one of the top five North American cities to see a decline in its rating and slipped three places in the rankings, to the benefit of Tokyo, Zurich and Seoul. Despite Boston’s rating improving by one point, it lost ground to Chicago, which saw an improvement of three places in the rankings.

Tokyo remains in fifth place and is now 32 points behind the top four, it seems the Japanese capital is recovering its status as a leading financial centre.

“Tokyo seems to be slowly regaining its reputation but it will take a while to catch up with Hong Kong and Singapore,” said a London-based investment banker in the GFCI report.