ANALYSIS

THE boasting of business leaders in Frankfurt that the city will win 8,000 banking jobs from London is simply posturing.

Frankfurt, Paris, Dublin and Luxembourg are involved in a fight to prove they are a viable alternative to the City after Brexit.

This tussle is little more than a race for second place. Despite the doom-mongering, the threats from some City investment houses to move en masse have proved unfounded.

Fewer than ten out of 40 foreign banks based in London have so far applied for an EU licence. This slow pace of applications has led many regulators to suspect these giants have found a way to stay in London and keep trading with the bloc after Brexit – possibly as a broker businesses.

Likewise, the actual number of confirmed job moves – rather than the thousands bandied around as threats – is limited to a few hundred per bank.

With 140,000 finance jobs in the City, even if Frankfurt were to win 6,000 jobs the disruption would be an inconvenience rather than a hammer blow. These jobs may even be in addition to the ones already based in London – rather than instead of.

Frankfurt’s boasts are a bid to get one over on Paris. Both cities have proved equally unappealing for bankers – Frankfurt lacks culture and available office space for hi-tech businesses, while France’s reputation for taxing the rich has hampered its cause.

And whatever gains they do make, the depth of liquidity in UK markets and the quality of talent based in the City should see it remain one of the globe’s foremost financial centres.