With the prospect of Brexit still hanging over the UK, New York has usurped London as the world’s top financial centre, according to a new survey of global industry professionals.
New York-based consulting firm Duff & Phelps reported that its latest survey of financial sector professionals finds that more than half (52%) now see Wall Street as the world’s preeminent financial centre, up by 10% from last year’s survey.
Just over a third (36%) of respondents still give the title to London, down 17% from a year ago.
“Looking ahead five years, respondents’ confidence in London returning to the top spot does not improve either,” the firm reported.
It said that only 21% expect London to be the world’s financial centre in 2024. New York is cited by 44% of respondents, and 12% expect Hong Kong to take top spot by then.
“Brexit has cast a shadow of uncertainty over the UK’s world-class financial sector and its ability to dominate other major financial hubs in the coming years,” Monique Melis, managing director, compliance and regulatory consulting at Duff & Phelps, said in a statement.
“Looking ahead, we see the combined effects of Brexit and the emergence of Asia with respondents expecting Hong Kong to play a bigger role as a leading global financial centre,” she added.
Among other things, the report also found that “firms are spending more on compliance and that the increase is occurring more quickly than expected.”
Duff & Phelps said it also found that 30% of respondents rated at least one aspect of their anti-money laundering (AML) processes as either “not at all effective” or only “somewhat effective,” adding that nearly 25% of firms gave themselves low marks in their internal audit of AML risk.