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Banks, insurers and asset managers have opened new or expanded
existing hubs in the EU to continue serving their clients given
that future access will be more limited once transition
arrangements expire on Dec. 31.
The number of jobs and amount of assets is still a fraction of
total jobs and assets held by Britain's financial sector.
But there could still be a flurry of further staff and
operational announcements in the weeks before the year end, said
Omar Ali, UK financial services managing partner at EY.
"Firms must now ensure that as a minimum they will be
operational and can serve clients on the 1st of January 2021,"
Ali said.
EY said its Brexit Tracker showed that companies have also been
hiring for more than 2,800 new roles in Europe since Britain
voted to leave the EU in 2016.
Assets worth over 1.2 trillion pounds ($1.55 trillion) belonging
to EU customers have also been moved from London to the bloc,
where Dublin remains the most popular destination for new hubs,
followed by Luxembourg, Frankfurt and Paris, EY said.
The EU has said it will only offer selective access for the City
of London's range of financial services under its "equivalence"
system, under which access is only allowed if Britain's finance
regulations are equivalent to the EU's.
"The time has now passed for firms to rely on short term
equivalence assessments that would align to EU rules, and the
sector’s attention is increasingly focused on the longer-term
outlook," Ali said.
The Tracker monitors statements from 222 of the biggest
financial firms that have significant operations in Britain,
with latest data up to Sept. 30.
(Reporting by Huw Jones. Editing by Jane Merriman)
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