Britain Out As Europe’s Largest Financial Trading Hub

city of londonIn the current interest rate environment, this is far less likely for wealthy countries like the UK

European Views | Amsterdam took over London as Europe’s largest financial trading hub following post-Brexit changes to finance rules.

According to a report by BBC, value turnover on Amsterdam exchanges now stands at 9.2 billion euros or higher by 7 percent than London’s 8.6-billion-euro daily turnover.

Following new Brexit rules, European Union (EU)-based banks switched to buying European shares currently not traded on the London stock exchange, resulting in loss of fees for city firms.

On Wednesday, Bank of England chief Andrew Bailey said there were signs that the EU was cutting London off the financial markets, warning the bloc not to do so.

He said the city wanted to reach an agreement but would not accept being dictated to by the bloc.

He said the EU’s demands have so far been unreasonable.

For EU, Britain’s financial markets do not have the same supervisory level as that of three of its members namely France, Netherlands, and Germany.

However, both parties were working to resolve a March deadline to agree on an equivalence regime under which each would recognize the other’s financial regulations.

Number 10, otherwise known as 10 Downing Street where the headquarters of the Government of the United Kingdom is located, said that it remained open to negotiate with the EU on the equivalence issue.

“Despite the fact that we’ve supplied all of the necessary paperwork and are one of the world’s most preeminent financial centers, with a strong regulatory system, the EU still granted us full equivalence,” it said.

“This has meant that some meant a number of EU shares that were previously traded on UK venues, had moved to the EU venues on the advice of the European regulator, but our position is the fragmentation of share trading across financial centers is in no one’s interest,” it added.

Financial services—one of the economic drivers of the UK—were largely omitted from the last-minute Brexit deal agreed upon in December.

London was generating about 135 billion pounds in business yearly, with financial institutions earning a huge chunk of commission from stock trading.

However, the London financial markets have been cut off from the EU markets since January 1.

The EU said it would not be rushed into decisions on granting access for UK financial companies as it was looking at how far UK rules would diverge from its own.

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The Corner
The Corner has a team of on-the-ground reporters in capital cities ranging from New York to Beijing. Their stories are edited by the teams at the Spanish magazine Consejeros (for members of companies’ boards of directors) and at the stock market news site Consenso Del Mercado (market consensus). They have worked in economics and communication for over 25 years.