After U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May set a date to trigger the formal mechanism for quitting the EU, within weeks some of the worlds Big investment banks will begin the process of moving London-based operations into new hubs inside the European Union.
The biggest winners look likely to be Frankfurt and Dublin. Those people familiar with the plans, asking not to be named because the plans aren’t public, include the Bank of America, Standard Chartered Plc and Barclays Plc. To ensure continued access to the single market they are considering Ireland’s capital for their EU base. Meanwhile, Frankfurt is being eyed by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc respectably others said.
Dublin shares similar laws and regulations as its U.K.neighbour and is the only other English-speaking hub in the EU. Whilst Frankfurt is a natural pick, given a financial ecosystem featuring Deutsche Bank AG, the European Central Bank and BaFin.
Executives want to have new or expanded offices up and running inside the EU before the U.K. departs in 2019. With banks increasingly expecting a so-called hard Brexit – the loss of their right to sell services freely around the EU from London.
It is thought London could lose 10,000 banking jobs and 20,000 roles in financial services as clients move 1.8 trillion euros ($1.9 trillion) of assets out of the U.K. after Brexit, according to think tank Bruegel. Other estimates range from as much as 232,000 jobs to as few as 4,000.