UK confident of Brexit deal for financial sector
‘Imminent’ agreement would give firms some access to EU markets
The United Kingdom is confident it is on the verge of reaching an agreement with the European Union to give London’s vast financial centre access to EU markets after Brexit, Britain’s financial services minister John Glen said yesterday.
Home to the world’s highest number of banks and largest commercial insurance market, the City of London and its sister district in Canary Wharf are scrambling to prepare for Britain’s departure from the European Union, the biggest challenge the UK financial sector has faced since the 2007-2009 financial crisis.
Britain’s financial services sector, the biggest source of its exports and tax revenue, has been struggling to find a way to preserve the existing flow of trading after it leaves the EU.
The government is looking for an improved form of the EU’s existing system of financial market access known as ‘equivalence’ — a basic form of market access dependent on rules being kept broadly similar and the basis for the EU’s relationship with countries such as the United States.
“I am extremely confident we will reach an imminent deal,” Glen told a financial services conference in London.