GFCI which provides profiles, ratings and rankings for 79 financial centres worldwide ranked Mumbai at the 66th place, down three places from last year when it was ranked 63rd on the coveted list.

Mumbai is the only Indian city on the list, which was topped by London.

New York was ranked second in the list followed by Hong Kong and Singapore in the third and fourth place respectively.

Others in the top 10 are: Zurich (5th), Tokyo (6th), Geneva (7th), Boston (8th), Seoul (9th) and Frankfurt (10th).

Although New Delhi, the country's political hub, was added to the GFCI questionnaire recently and its progress was being monitored it failed to make it to the list.

Almaty, Baku, Busan, Guangzhou, Liechtenstein, New Delhi, Riga, Santiago, Tel Aviv and Tianjin have been added to the GFCI questionnaire recently and "we track their progress with interest" GFCI said, adding that "they have yet to acquire sufficient assessments to be included in the Index."

As many as 26 financial centres improved rankings from last year, 44 centres declined, 7 showed no change and 2 (Panama and Cyprus) entered the list for the first time.

All but six centres in the GFCI experienced a rise in the ratings.

According to the index, the 10 centres that are likely to become more significant in the next few years are: Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Seoul, Toronto, Sao Paulo, Luxembourg, Istanbul, Beijing and Moscow.

Interestingly, nearly 40 per cent of the centres included in the GFCI ranking are located in emerging markets as they gain prominence in the global economy and the financial world.

PTI