Malta down 11 points in Global Financial Services Index

The report, written by Mark Yeandle and sponsored by the Qatar Financial Center, says that in the previous publication, "there's been a real hammering of secondary European centers like Paris and Madrid. We were stunned the Nordics haven't done better, but suddenly they have surged," Forbes has reported this morning.

The report said that Nordic and Eastern European centers are getting very strong support.

"Centres such as Tallinn (up 118 points in the ratings), Istanbul (up 86 point) Moscow (up 75 points) Copenhagen (up 55 points) and St Petersburg (up 50 points) all demonstrate strong increases in competitiveness." Meanwhile - the report said - Madrid is down 11, Dublin is down 10, Luxembourg 14 and Malta down 11.

London, New York and Hong Kong have been named as the leading financial centers of the world, and they are tightly clustered a few points apart in the latest Global Financial Centres Index. The top three control approximately 70 percent of the world's equity transactions,

Some Asian centers have been gaining, with Singapore up 13 points, Shanghai up 30 points and Seoul up 28 points. Others  including Tokyo, Beijing, Taipei and Shenzhen have fallen.

there was a gap of 16 points between the first and third, now "There is no significant difference between London, New York and Hong Kong in the ratings; many respondents from our questionnaire continue to believe that these centres work together for mutual benefit."

"We began the index in 2005, said Michael Mainelli, co-founder of Z/Yen, the leading City of London commercial think tank. Since then the Asian centers have caught up dramatically, he added.

Mainelli said Singapore is really moving up the index. He thinks it will become the third center, independent of both Anglo-Saxon and Chinese approaches to finance.

Some offshore centers such as Isle of Man and the Cayman Island fell in the listing over recent years but have since recovered - Jersey and Guernsey remain the leading offshore centers.

At the Mondo Visione Exchange Forum in London, Mainelli recalled the concerns around London's future in 2002 the "Sizing up the City"  study examined London, New York, Paris and Frankfurt.

"In the 70s and 80s, the theory was you built a financial center because you had a large domestic economy, and the third financial center at the time was going to be Tokyo. We were terrified we would lose our advantage to Europe."

Chris Cummington, CEO of TheCityUK said it is possible to unhook a financial center from the country's domestic economy.  After the end of empire, capital markets remained in London.

"The superglue reasons to be here are knowledge, expertise, a sense of history and a sense of stability which really counts for something. London gets money from companies that want someone to look after it."

 "And we didn't have a response. How do we energize our government? This is our industry...the challenge is to be more proactive and more positive in our engagement."

Mainelli agreed and suggested London was too complacent.

"Four years ago we started having a series of financial crises, yet we hold ourselves as leaders. We have said no to every single proposal (from Europe) but we have not come up with a proposal. We have actuaries, accountants and lawyers, a whole system to do something. I would like to see each institution come up with one thing they could take to Brussels to create a better system."