For better or for worse, London continues to generate much international attention around its financial centre. The debate over a possible UK exit from the EU is very much alive, with a referendum on the matter likely to take place in 2016. The news of the UK government starting the sale of Royal Bank of Scotland, which it was forced to rescue during the financial crisis, attracted as much criticism as it did praise. And the first conviction in the Libor rigging affair was delivered in a London court, bringing the scandal nearer to closure but also providing a reminder of which city stood at the epicentre.
But away from these headline-grabbing developments, looking closer to figures and data, London continues to reign as the world’s leading international financial centre (IFC). The Banker has analysed a number of leading IFCs and has crunched numbers reflecting macroeconomic factors, size of financial markets, appeal to international investors and ease of doing business, among many others. In our latest list, new data on numbers of financial services firms present in the 56 hubs studied was introduced to better capture the support network that each IFC has developed over the years. London scores well in this respect. It hosts the third largest community of such firms after São Paulo and Amsterdam, according to data provider Dun and Bradstreet: 44,373 between depository institutions, brokers, insurance agents and others.
