Banks’ Brexit plans gaining pace
(5 May 2017 – Europe) Global and European banks are set to exit the UK ahead of Britain’s exit from the European Union (EU).
A senior executive at JP Morgan, Daniel Pinto, said that "hundreds" of staff may move to Dublin, Frankfurt and Luxembourg. However, reports suggest the number of staff to be relocated is between 500 and 1,000.
Speaking to Bloomberg, Pinto, head of investment banking at JP Morgan, said: "We are going to use the three banks we already have in Europe as the anchors for our operations.
"We will have to move hundreds of people in the short term to be ready for day one, when negotiations finish, and then we will look at the longer-term numbers."
Additionally, Standard Chartered bank said it was in talks with German regulators about making Frankfurt its Europe base.
Standard Chartered chairman Jose Vinals said on Wednesday: "We are looking at setting up a subsidiary in the EU to ensure we are prepared.
"The choice of Frankfurt is very natural as we have a branch there and we do euro clearing there."
However, a spokeswoman for the bank, which only has a small amount of business in Europe, said the impact on UK staff would be "minimal".
Other financial services firms have announced plans to move jobs out of London in case the UK fails to secure "passporting" rights for them to operate across EU borders following Brexit.
Last week, Germany-based Deutsche Bank said up to 4,000 jobs may be shifted out of the UK as a result of Brexit – totaling nearly half its UK workforce.
Barclays told the BBC the bank was preparing to add hundreds of staff to offices in Dublin, Frankfurt and Milan to counter Brexit risks to its European business.
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