UK needs urgent action to retain banks: BBA
(16 November 2015 – Europe) The British Bankers’ Association (BBA) has said that the country’s lawmakers must take “urgent action” to ensure the U.K. maintains its position as the leading global financial centre or risk the departure of banks to cities such as Singapore and Hong Kong.
In a report released last week, the BBA said new regulations, taxes and depressed economic activity in Europe have resulted in an 8 percent drop in British banking jobs, with two-thirds their members saying they’ve moved business elsewhere since 2010.
“We have now reached a watershed moment in Britain’s competitiveness as an international banking centre” and “many international banks have been moving jobs overseas or deciding not to invest in the U.K.,” BBA Chief Executive Officer Anthony Browne said in the report.
“Wholesale banking is an internationally mobile industry and there is a real risk this decline could accelerate.”
Included on the BBA’s wishlist is a demand Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne cut the bank levy faster. Under current plans the tax will be reduced over six years and then limited to domestic balance sheets until 2021. In addition, the group wants an 8 percent surcharge on bank profits to be phased out over time.
Financial services is the U.K.’s biggest export industry selling £62 billion (A$132 billion) abroad every year, and employing more than 405,000 people, the BBA said.
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