This research, by Z/Yen Ltd, is the first to report on о new biannual index of competitiveness for 46 world financial centres. The first Global Financial Centres Index (GFCI] presented here ranks London and New York as the leading centres, followed by Hong Kong, Singapore and Zurich. London has a narrow lead over New York, but the fwo together are significantly ahead of the rest of the field to be the only true global financial centres. Overtime the GFCI will become a more powerful tool as we expand the number of centres and we further develop the Index to allow increasing sophistication in analysing changes in the relative strengths of financial centres.