Germany set to be big winner from City exodus
FRANKFURT is expected to be the major winner in moves by City banks to shift jobs out of London as a result of Brexit.
The major London banks submitted contingency plans to UK regulators last week following a request made in April to outline their plans in the event of a hard Brexit.
One City banker told The Mail on Sunday that more than 50 per cent of roles would move to the German city, with Paris, Madrid, Amsterdam and Dublin taking smaller shares.
‘It will take a few years, then slowly but surely the sucking sound will grow, and Frankfurt will be huge,’ the source said.
Banks have been making contingency plans for how they will cater to European Union customers after Brexit, as they expect to lose the ‘passporting’ rights that enable them to serve them from London.
There has been some debate as to how big the exodus from the City will be. Some suggest banks could continue serving EU clients from the City due to loopholes in the rules.
Nicolas Veron, a fellow at Washington think-tank the Peterson Institute, said it was still early days, adding: ‘Very few job openings or job cuts have happened. We’re largely at a planning phase now. Early indications favour Frankfurt, but most firms haven’t decided anything final yet.’
Veron said he expected job cuts in London, rather than transfers, explaining: ‘The financial industry tends to be pretty brutal. It’s less people moving than people being fired in one place and other people being hired in another place.’
Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JP Morgan, said last week that the number of jobs moved depended on EU regulators.
‘If the EU wants to move a lot more jobs out of London, it can simply dictate that. We have 16,000 people in the UK, of whom 75 per cent are servicing EU companies.’