Is there a regional preference for accenting the first syllable in "finance" vs. the second syllable?
In standard English (and most dialects I can think of - in mine it does, anyway), many words have a feature where emphasis on the first syllable signifies a noun, while emphasis on the second syllable signifies a verb, such as in the words "record", "replay", "increase" and "permit" - this is a common feature of English as a whole, and it doesn't appear to be anything to do with regional variation.
In Linguistics, a word which is signified as a noun through having its first syllable emphasised (i.e., FInance) in order to convert it into a noun is known as an initial stress derived noun.
I am British (from Southwest rural) and I would only pronounce "finance" with emphasis on the second syllable if I were to use it as a verb, for example, "I'm going to finance this project". So this isn't a strictly British feature!
I hope this helps!