The Global Financial Centres Index 36 (GFCI)

The thirty-sixth edition of the Global Financial Centres Index (GFCI 36) was published on 24 September 2024. GFCI 36 provides evaluations of future competitiveness and rankings for 121 financial centres around the world. The GFCI serves as a valuable reference for policy and investment decision-makers.

China Development Institute (CDI) in Shenzhen and Z/Yen Partners in London collaborate in producing the GFCI. The GFCI is updated and published every March and September, and receives considerable attention from the global financial community.

133 financial centres were researched for GFCI 36 of which 121 are in the main index. The GFCI is compiled using 143 instrumental factors. These quantitative measures are provided by third parties including the World Bank,, the OECD, and the United Nations.

The instrumental factors are combined with financial centre assessments provided by respondents to the GFCI online questionnaire. GFCI 36 uses 37,830 assessments from 6,188 respondents.

GFCI 36 Results

Leading Centres

• New York leads the index, with London second. Hong Kong has overtaken Singapore to regain third position.
• San Francisco remains at number five, with Chicago and Los Angeles overtaking Shanghai to place sixth and seventh, with Shanghai now in eighth position.
• Shenzhen and Frankfurt complete the top 10.

Western Europe

• London continues to lead in the region in second place globally, with seven Western European centres featuring in the top 20 in GFCI 36.
• The average rating across this region was a reduction of just over 1% - the biggest fall in ratings among the regions.
• Dublin, Lugano, Jersey, Guernsey, and the Isle of Man gained nine rank places or more in comparison with GFCI 35.

Asia/Pacific

• Seven Asia/Pacific centres feature in the world top 20, and the average rating for this region is down 0.56%.
• Rankings in the region were relatively stable, although Sydney, Nanjing, and Tianjin fell 10 places or more. Kuala Lumpur was the only centre in the Asia/Pacific region that improved more than 10 places in GFCI 36.

North America

• New York, San Francisco, Chicago, and Los Angeles remain in the world top 10, with Washington DC also in the top 20.
• On average, ratings for centres in this region fell 0.38%.
• Montreal rose six rank places, the largest rise in the region.

Eastern Europe & Central Asia

• Astana remains in the lead position in the region, up four rank places to 62nd.
• Almaty overtook Tallinn to take second place in the region.
• The average rating change across this region was a fall of just 0.13%.
• Almaty rose 12 rank places, with Tallinn down 10 places. All other centres had changes in their rankings of fewer than 10 places.

Middle East & Africa

• Dubai and Abu Dhabi continue to take first and second places in the region, with Dubai rising four rank places to 16th in GFCI 36.
• Tel Aviv remains third in the region, with Casablanca the leading African centre and fourth in the region.
• The average rating change across this region was a fall of just 0.01%.
• Riyadh and Doha reversed the falls they experienced in GFCI 35, both up over 20 places. Kuwait City improved 11 rank places.

Latin America & The Caribbean

• Bermuda rose dramatically—up 27 places in GFCI 36 to lead the region, with Cayman Islands and Sao Paulo in second and third places.
• Bahamas rose eight rank places.
• This region was the only world region where the average rating in the index increased - by 0.65%.

FinTech

• We are able to assess 116 centres for their Fintech offering.
• New York retains its leading position in the Fintech ranking, followed by London. Shenzhen overtook San Francisco to take third position by just one rating point.
• Hong Kong has joined Washington DC, Los Angeles, Chicago, Singapore, and Seoul in the top 10, replacing Shanghai, which has dropped to 15th position.
• In the Fintech rankings, 12 centres dropped 10 or more places with 9 centres rising 10 or more places.

A blueprint for a coordinated minimum effective taxation standard for ultra-high-net-worth individuals

This report presents a proposal for an internationally coordinated standard ensuring an effective taxation of ultra-high-net-worth individuals. In the baseline proposal, individuals with more than $1 billion in wealth would be required to pay a minimum amount of tax annually, equal to 2% of their wealth. This standard could be flexibly implemented by participating countries through a variety of domestic instruments, including a presumptive income tax, an income tax on a broad notion of income, or a wealth tax.

The report presents evidence that contemporary tax systems fail to tax ultra-high-net-worth individuals effectively, clarifies the case for international coordination to address this issue, analyzes implementation challenges, and provides revenue estimations. The main conclusions are that (i) building on recent progress in international tax cooperation, such a common standard has become technically feasible; (ii) it could be enforced successfully even if all countries did not adopt it, by strengthening current exit taxes and implementing “tax collector of last resort” mechanisms as in the coordinated minimum tax on multinational companies; (iii) a minimum tax on billionaires equal to 2% of their wealth would raise $200-$250 billion per year globally from about 3,000 taxpayers; extending the tax to centimillionaires would add $100-$140 billion; (iv) this international standard would effectively address regressive features of contemporary tax systems at the top of the wealth distribution; (v) it would not substitute for, but support domestic progressive tax policies, by improving transparency about top-end wealth, reducing incentives to engage in tax avoidance, and preventing a race to the bottom; (vi) its economic impact must be assessed in light of the observed pre-tax rate of return to wealth for ultra-high-net-worth individuals which has been 7.5% on average per year (net of inflation) over the last four decades, and of the current effective tax rate of billionaires, equivalent to 0.3% of their wealth.

Thomson Reuters Institute: 2024 Generative AI in Professional Services - Perceptions, Usage, and Impact on the Future of Work

Generative AI (GenAI), once a futuristic concept, is here and reshaping the professional landscape across service industries like legal, tax and accounting, risk and fraud, and government. Since its debut in late 2022, platforms like ChatGPT and advancements like GPT-4 have demonstrated disruptive potential, enabling the rapid creation of high-quality content with heightened accuracy. While adoption isn't yet widespread, more than half of professionals believe they should use GenAI in their daily work — and they’re already planning for the specialized tools that will create this reality.

In this report, Thomson Reuters Institute explore how these professionals perceive the use of generative AI in their workplace, how and to what level they are using and integrating it into their processes, and perceptions of the future of work in an environment in which generative AI has made its presence felt.