The City of London would be hollowed out. Bankers would have to retrain as burger chefs. And Paris and Frankfurt would emerge as the twin centres of the European financial markets, leaving London as little more than a backwater. Of all the predictions made by some Remainers during Brexit, there was one that kept re-emerging: that financial trading would inevitably move to the other side of the Channel.
It’s clear that this doom mongering was overblown. A deal has finally been struck between EU chiefs and the bloc’s member states that will keep the City of London in business for several years to come. According to Politico, following pressure from France, the EU has allowed European banks to continue ‘clearing’ – the complex but vital process of settling trades in the financial markets – in the UK. The process of ‘clearing’ was made compulsory after the financial crisis of 2008; London clearing houses quickly became the most popular as banks from around the world sought to conduct trades from start to finish in one place.
Even helping the British was better than allowing Germany to claim power over the bloc’s clearing houses
The EU could have used its regulatory powers to shift the business inside its own borders, and kill a lucrative chunk of the City’s business.
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