BoE's Woods says no 'sweeping solution' for banks after Brexit

[July 19, 2016] LONDON (Reuters) - Relying on the European Union's securities rules to obtain access to the EU's single market after Britain leaves the bloc won't be a "sweeping solution", Bank of England Deputy Governor Sam Woods said on Tuesday.

Banks want to maintain their "passporting" rights to the EU after Brexit so they can continue to offer their services to customers on the continent from London.

Under EU securities rules which come into force in 2018, financial firms from outside the bloc might gain access to the single market if they can show their home rules are "equivalent" in strictness to the bloc's rules.

"It would be hard to be confident that would be a sweeping solution for everything, partly because of the scale of this activity at the moment," Woods told parliament's Treasury Select Committee.

(Reporting by Huw Jones, David Milliken and Ana Nicolaci da Costa; editing by Jason Neely)

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