London leapfrogs New York as world's leading financial hub - survey

LONDON, Sept 23 (Reuters) - London has regained its crown asthe world's leading financial centre, according to a survey ofindustry professionals on Wednesday, benefiting from the clearelection victory by the Conservative party to overtake New York.

The online survey of more than 2,000 individuals ranked 84cities around the world in terms of the business environment,infrastructure, quality of workforce and financial sectordevelopment.

London, which had top billing for seven years running in thetwice-yearly survey, lost the top spot to New York last year.

The shock election triumph by the Conservative party in theGeneral Election in May helped it overtake New York this time,research company Z/Yen, which published the survey said.

Ahead of the vote most polls had predicted a hungparliament, and a phase of political and economic instability.

The result comes despite Europe's biggest bank HSBC and its Asia-focused rival Standard Chartered currentlydeciding whether to axe their London headquarters because of agovernment levy on bank profits and the uncertain outcome of anupcoming vote on Britain's membership of the European Union.

London came top in every category, the report showed. HongKong, Singapore and Tokyo took third, fourth and fifth placesrespectively. Toronto, San Francisco and Washington DC were alsonamed in the top 10.

The only other European city to rank among the world's 10leading financial centres was Zurich while Frankfurt was theEuropean Union's second highest ranking city in 14th place.

Chris Cummings, chief executive of lobby group TheCityUK,said a successful renegotiation of Britain's relationship withthe currency bloc was "critical" to sustained growth of itsfinancial industry, often described as the world's 'gateway' toEurope.

"London faces stiff challenges from other establishedcentres, not just New York and the likes of Singapore, but alsoemerging centres in Asia, the Middle East and Africa. But it isthe future of the UK's relationship with the EU which isarguably the most pressing issue," he said in a statement.

Z/Yen's Mark Yeandle told newspaper CityAM that London'sfuture status as the world's top financial centre was alsothreatened by government efforts to control immigration.

"You can't have an international financial centre without aninternational workforce," he told the newspaper. (Reporting By Sinead Cruise; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)