(News Bulletin 247) – If London remains more attractive than the French capital despite Brexit, the city of lights outdistances Frankfurt and Zurich on the Old Continent.

Paris is one of the top 5 most attractive financial centers in the world. This is what emerges from a new ranking made public this Wednesday, November 22. The first edition of this ranking, called Ofex (for “open financial ecosystem index”, or open source index on the financial ecosystem), ranks 47 financial centers from 44 different countries. It was carried out by two research institutes: the Louis Bachelier Institute (ILB) in Paris and the Center for financial studies (CFS) in Frankfurt, affiliated with Goethe University Frankfurt.

In order to classify the attractiveness of the different global financial centers, Ofex is based on 55 criteria* (such as total market capitalization, the real estate loan market, assets under management of banks, GDP, the level of financial regulation, the level of education or even access to the internet) which, combined, make it possible to determine an overall score out of 100.

But not all financial centers appear in this ranking, because certain data could not be reported, which would bias the results of the study.

New York and Chicago in the lead

Unsurprisingly, Wall Street is in the lead. New York is therefore considered the most attractive financial center in the world with a score of 100 out of 100. Next come Chicago (with a score of 85) and London (82.5).

After Brexit, London lost its place as the leading European stock exchange (by overall capitalization of listed companies) at the end of 2022 to Paris, according to Bloomberg data. But last October, London narrowly overtook Paris with the rise in oil prices and the decline in the luxury sector. The two places are therefore neck and neck on this criterion.

But the Ofex ranking measures more global attractiveness, and not just the stock market weight of different financial centers. In this regard, London is still far ahead of Paris, which ranks in 5th position (with a score of 70.5 out of 100) just behind Tokyo (70.8).

However, the French capital has nothing to be ashamed of because on the European continent, it is ahead of Frankfurt (6th, with a score of 68) and Zurich (9th, with a score of 64.4). In the world top 10, we also find Toronto (7th), Seoul (8th) and Singapore (10th).

Johannesburg in last position

Conversely, in the depths of the ranking, it is Johannesburg which stands out with a score of 40 out of 100, the worst score. The financial centers of Manila (42.7), Buenos Aires (43) and Istanbul (44) are barely doing better.

This list is intended to be updated every year. “This first Ofex ranking complements existing tools with a transparent and objective measurement of attractiveness,” underlines Louis Boulanger, director of the ILB Labs. “Ofex is the result of very constructive Franco-German scientific cooperation which contributes to the debate on the best way to compare and classify international financial centers,” judges Rainer Klump, scientific director at the CFS.

*Methodology: the 55 criteria are divided into two main categories, namely economic and financial development (22 indicators) and the working environment (33 indicators). These two categories have a weighting of 50% each. Within the working environment category, there are three subcategories: business environment (15 indicators), human capital (14 indicators) and infrastructure (4 indicators). Based on these elements, a score out of 100 is assigned to each financial center studied. The indicators are listed on this page. The full Ofex ranking is available here.