Barclays Irish Brexit Structure BBI Takes Shape
(23 April 2020 – Europe) Barclay’s have increased their banking assets domiciled in Ireland to a value of EUR€69 billion, representing a 450 percent increase year-on-year.
This follows a decision from the bank to make its Irish banking unit, Barclays Bank Ireland (BBI) the main European Union (EU) hub once Brexit has been finalised. Ultimately, the bank expects its Irish banking unit to hold around Euro 255 billion of assets so that they may maintain access to clients across the EU post the Brexit transition period.
This planned scaling operation will make Barclays the biggest bank in Ireland by balance sheet size. Though Barclays is moving GBP£225 billion (€250 billion) of its GBP£1.15 trillion in assets to Ireland, that’s enough to surpass the country’s current largest bank, Bank of Ireland, which has around GBP£110 billion in assets.
Most of this asset size growth has been largely driven by financial derivatives related to interest rates and foreign exchange (FX) rates. Although, it is important to note that the bank’s Irish balance sheet also has EUR€27 billion of derivative liabilities.
“For some time now, we have been expanding our existing subsidiary Barclays Bank Ireland PLC (BBI) in order to continue providing products and services to our clients following the UK’s departure from the European Union. We have been engaging with clients who are affected by these changes and this page provides more information for those clients, predominantly European clients – excluding the UK - of our Corporate Bank, Investment Bank, and Private Bank businesses” Barclays said in a statement.
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