NOTHING IS “Secure” - post Brexit - BUT London is the No 1 Market in the world followed by USA - 1000 “European” firms have aplplied to establish offices in London "Post Brexit "
- I’ll go £100 blind - Any takers ?
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The above number of EU companies have applied to the FCA to establish a presence in the UK - this information is insightful.
10% are categorized as ‘banking’ - the first question that a person would ask is what about the other 90%?
The answer is that they don’t need to apply since they are already in the UK - the UK focus is to retain these companies’ presence.
A second thing to note is that the third highest country in terms of company numbers is Cyprus at 16.5%. Given that country’s size this seems unusual, but then think about Clint’s thread on offshore brokers - will the UK follow the US lead in stopping it’s citizens from using non-Uk brokers post brexit?
The Cypriot brokers are perhaps adapting to a changing world.
The third lesson is perhaps the law of unintended consequence.
The UK PM agreed a Withdrawal Agreement that included a special place for N.Ireland - it has a foot in the EU but remains in the UK.
The highest number of applicants - almost a quarter - are from Ireland. So easy for those companies to set up just over one hour’s motorway drive North.
Hmmm… now the ex UK Finance minister - a day is a long time in politics I suppose.
It seems Boris wanted a “Closer” relationship and Sajid said No
Aye I was reading a couple of days ago re Cummings - seems the No.11 advisers were not in sync with Boris’s ideas - especially on spending - they wanted a tighter regime - Boris wants to borrow/spend. Good chance Cummings will take over No.11 running as well.
That’s why the pound rise right now - more spending, more economic activity, less pressure on BOE to cut.
FTSE traders selling on same notion - no cuts for the companies to get even cheaper money.
It’s driven by the algos - sense yet to take over - if ever :).
And perhaps an update as to how the negotiations are progressing.
The official line from EU and UK is that they are not.
Guess the sticking point - fishing. I remember posting some time ago that fishing will be the wild card - it’s not a huge industry for UK but they own the waters.
Finance is huge for UK but EU have the size… I can see a trade in the making.
Should have mentioned for anyone trading the pound - it has take a little fall since I posted -some analysts are blaming the apparent stalemate in the talks as per my post.
That is only part of the cause - second part is that the new BOE governor has said that the huge borrowing can be paid by printing - not entirely his decision but carries weight
Eur/Gbp this past few hours:
Just an update on the FTA in the making that I spoke of back then and how Finance for the UK has been included in that agreement struck on Dec31st 2020.
Well it happens that so much time was taken up with fishing that they simply ran out of time to sort Finance - thus those talks are now ongoing.
The speech given by Gov Bailey (BOE) yesterday is more a political speech in which he stated
“I’m afraid a world in which the EU dictates and determines which rules and standards we have in the UK isn’t going to work,”
The EU are looking for guarantees that London will not undercut their Financial Services before giving access to the single market.
Right now the relations between UK/EU are at an all time low so it’s unlikely that a deal will be struck in the short term although they have both set a March deadline for doing just that.
That was 2 weeks ago and as they say - a week is a long time in politics.
There are behind the scenes talk of ‘resetting’ UK/EU relations - seems guys are realizing that each are not going anywhere geographically soon.
Anyways the rumour is that a memorandum will be soon published on Financial Services - hmmm… if true then it’s a big give from EU.