US firm to move 1,000 staff into EU

JP Morgan is planning to move up to 1,000 London jobs to Dublin, Frankfurt and Luxembourg in a bid to secure its EU business after Brexit.

The US banking giant will relocate between 500 and 1,000 front and back office staff, with custody business roles destined for Dublin, treasury services set to settle in Luxembourg, and investment banking positions bound for Frankfurt, according to people familiar with the matter.

It is understood that the majority of those jobs will settle in three cities, but others will be spread across additional JP Morgan sites across the EU.

The US bank also has offices in cities including Paris, Milan, Madrid and Stockholm.

The chief executive of JP Morgan’s corporate and investment bank Daniel Pinto said earlier yesterday that a “substantial portion of the business” in London will have to be moved to the bloc.

“We are going to use the three banks we already have in Europe as the anchors for our operations,” he told Bloomberg on the sidelines of the Euromoney conference in Saudi Arabia.

“We will have to move hundreds of people in the shortterm to be ready for day one, when negotiations finish, and then we will look at the longerterm numbers.”

It is understood that the relocation drive will take place ahead of spring 2019, when the two-year window for Brexit negotiations draws to a close, and the UK is expected to lose passporting rights for financial services.

Mr Pinto said: “We have to plan for a scenario where there is no UK-EU passporting deal, and we have to move a substantial portion of our business to continue serving our European clients.”

Meanwhile, Standard Chartered confirmed it has contacted German regulators about plans to set up a Frankfurt subsidiary that will similarly safeguard its European business.

However, the bank said there would be “minimal” impact on UK staff.

A spokeswoman for Standard Chartered said: “We can confirm that we have decided to progress with an application to set up a European subsidiary in Frankfurt, as we already have a presence in Frankfurt through a branch and our Euro-clearing operations. This does not mean any change to our UK domicile or a change in our commitment to London. We also expect to focus on hiring a small number of staff locally, therefore any impact to UK staff will be minimal.”