Madrid has improved its ranking among the 96 most important financial centers in the world, as featured twice yearly in a report entitled the Global Financial Centers Index (GFCI). Whereas last September it was in 59th place, in the latest edition the Spanish capital is now at number 41. This rise of 18 places is the second most important in Europe and the sixth in the world.

Since 2007, the GFCI has studied the world's leading financial centers based on their competitiveness, and analyzed their situation from a twofold perspective: by obtaining external data on these cities, and through the answers obtained from an online survey of professionals in the financial sector.

These external data or international factors basically assess human capital, the business environment, the development of the financial sector, infrastructures and reputation, along with other aspects.

In March, the seven top cities continued in the same position as in September, with London at the head, followed by New York, Hong Kong and Singapore.

European ranking
In the European Union, Madrid is the eighth most important financial center after London, Frankfurt, Luxembourg, Paris, Hamburg, Dublin and Munich, and is followed in the European ranking by Stockholm, Edinburgh, Warsaw, Glasgow, Amsterdam and Copenhagen.

Hamburg, in fifth place in Europe, is the only European city that has seen a more significant improvement than Madrid. The Spanish capital, which in spite of its improvement has fallen five points in the overall score, was already well placed in this ranking before the crisis, and now looks like moving to reclaim its previous spot. While by 2007 it had risen to 26th in the ranking, by September 2015 it had dropped to 79.

Reputation counts
The ranking is offset with a reputation system that compares the weight of the assessments of the cities in the survey with their general score. A large difference indicates that the survey respondents consider the city to be more important than shown by its data.

This produces an alternative ranking which is headed by Washington DC, followed by Qingdao and Singapore. Madrid has a negative score of 12.