Edinburgh slides down global rankings
The city has slipped five places in a survey of top financial centres, but scraped into the top 20 cities in the world.
In the second report from the Global Financial Centres Index, commissioned by the City of London Corporation, Edinburgh ranked 20th out of 50 centres, down from 15th in a survey earlier this year.
The good news is that the authors of the report insist that the rank is less important than the rating – a mark out of 1,000. Edinburgh has lost 18 points since the last survey, which isn’t exactly huge. However, it has been leapfrogged by Dublin and has new entrant the Isle of Man breathing down its neck in 21st place.
Rankings are based on five criteria – people, business environment, market access, infrastructure and general competitiveness. Anyone can vote, but the authors assure us the software is sophisticated enough to see if there’s any voterigging going on, so if thousands of Scots decide to rank London as ‘poor’ on all counts, the survey is going to know something fishy’s going on.
London remains top of the rankings, and has increased its lead on secondplace New York, but both are well ahead of Hong Kong, which comes in third. The report suggests that the two cities are the only truly global financial centres.
Michael Mainelli, one of the report’s authors from Z/Yen Group, stays positive about the city: “Edinburgh is a very stable player. One thing that’s often overlooked because of London is the scale of asset and investment management that occurs there.”
And what are the chances of it climbing up the rankings? Mainelli says it’s down to three things: “Is there a talented workforce? Is there a good regulatory regime, by which we mean balanced? And thirdly is the tax regime favourable?”
With the Regional Selective Assistance Scheme shelling out a hefty £10k per job to Morgan Stanley to create 600 new jobs in Glasgow last summer, the answer to the third question at least looks like a resounding yes. The first is less certain – recruiters are all already complaining about a shortage of people to fill fund admin jobs. If this gets worse, Edinburgh’s standing may deteriorate further.
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