The United Kingdom has overtaken the United States to take the top spot in a ranking of the world’s leading financial centres.

The ranking, compiled by the World Economic Forum (WEF), places the UK at the top of a leader board of 55 of the world’s largest financially-focussed countries.

The US, which had previously held the top spot, slipped to third, behind second-placed Australia.

The poll will fuel the ongoing debate as to whether London or New York is the best place to do business for financial communities, amid recent reports that a growing number of hedge funds are moving to New York due to lighter regulation.

The ranking came in spite of the distinct problems in the UK’s financial services industry has suffered in the last 12 months at the hands of the global financial crisis, problems that have seen significant parts of the banking sector nationalised as the centre-piece of a barrage of government interventions into the financial industry.

As a result, the UK’s overall score in the poll – which is based on a score of 1 to 7 – fell by 0.55 points to 5.28, still above the US’s, which fell 0.73 to 5.12.

The rankings are based on more than 120 different variables looking at the size and breadth of capital markets, institutional environments and financial stability.

Among the most significant fallers in the overall rankings were France and Germany, who fell out of the top 10 altogether, while second-place Australia, up from 11th last year, and Singapore, rising from 10th to 4th, were among the biggest winners.

However, the report, penned by the organisers of the annual WEF leadership conference in Davos each year, does show that from a stability perspective, the UK lags behind the rest of the world, ranked 37 out of 55, just one spot ahead of the US at 38.

“The UK and the US may still show leadership in the rankings, but their significant drops in score show increasing weakness and imply their leadership may be in jeopardy,” said Kevin Steinberg, chief executive of WEF USA.

Overall, the report showed signs of weakness among many established global financial centres as a result of the recent crisis, while at the same time developing countries demonstrated relative financial stability.

From a pure stability standpoint – which was topped by Norway and Switzerland – Chile came in third, while Malaysia, Brazil and Mexico were all in the top 15 rankings.

Professor Nouriel Roubini, the well-known economist who was the leading academic involved in compiling the study, commented: “The change in scores does demonstrate the implications of the downturn on our assessment of the long-term development of financial systems.”