Scottish financial centres slide down global rankings

Scotland is keen to tout itself as an attractive destination for international financial services firms to set up shop (and hence create jobs north of the border). However, the turmoil surrounding the domestic banking sector has seen its reputation tarnished on the global stage.

Scotland has not fared very well at all in the latest Global Financial Centre Index, which ranks 75 cities in terms of their competitiveness against one another. Glasgow has fallen by 18 places since the last publication in June 2009, and Edinburgh has slipped by seven spots.

"There's a danger that Scotland the brand has been damaged by the negative press surrounding Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS," says Mark Yeandle, lead author of the report at Z/Yen which conducts the research.

This will, of course, come as a blow to the country, which is increasingly attempting to inward investment from international financial services firms. It has to be said that it's had a fair degree of success, with the likes of Virgin Bank and Tesco Personal Finance setting up recently and BNP Paribas planning an expansion in Glasgow.

However, what the latest GFCI shows is general increase in confidence after a period of extreme turbulence, says Yeandle, and this is still decidedly absent from Scotland.

"Of the 75 cities in the index, only eight have seen a drop in average assessments of 10% or greater since it began in 2007 - and two of them are in Scotland," he says