Deutsche Bank: Frankfurt will win the Brexit race


09/07/2017

Deutsche Bank Chief Executive Officer John Cryan is confident that Frankfurt has an ideal geographical location in Europe to become the financial center of the EU after Britain leaves the European Union.



"Of course, a lot of jobs will be created in cities like Dublin, Amsterdam and Paris, but none of these cities have the financial infrastructure to host a significant part of London business. The only city in Europe that meets all the necessary criteria is Frankfurt. "

Although officially London will renounce the title of the main "financial hub" of Europe only in 2019, many European banks are already actively looking for new trading floors. In particular, Deutsche Bank is planning to move about 4 thousand employees to Frankfurt and Berlin next year, and this is half of the British state of the German bank. This is reported by the agency Bloomberg, referring to its sources in Deutsche Bank.

"Brexit can become a kind of serious promotion for Frankfurt," said Deutsche Bank CEO John Cryan. "London's uniqueness lies in its infrastructure: if Germany wants to get most of the business from there, it needs to work in this direction," Cryan adds.

London may lose 30 thousand jobs in financial services since customers have already withdrawn 1.8 trillion euros ($ 2.2 trillion) from the UK due to Brexit, according to information from the analytical center Bruegel, located in Brussels. According to financial group Frankfurt Main Finance, 10 thousand workers will move from London to Frankfurt.

One of the main advantages of Frankfurt is that the headquarters of the European Central Bank is located in this city. In June, the Governing Council of the ECB recommended adding Article 22 to the Eurosystem Statute. This would grant it the powers to regulate clearing of trade transactions in euros. This power game could mark the transfer of more jobs from the London clearing industry to the EU and possibly Frankfurt.

Morgan Stanley, Citigroup Inc., Standard Chartered Plc and Nomura Holdings Inc. have already decided that their new European hub will be located in Germany. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and UBS Group AG are still considering various options, but are likely to adopt a similar solution. HSBC Holdings Plc is leaning towards Paris, and Bank of America Corp. has not yet decided on where to move the European operations.

Dublin is also considered a good place to do business, and many are thinking of moving their offices there. Research data of EY (Ernst & Young) consulting company suggests that large banks, insurers and other financial services companies prefer to move their headquarters to the capital of Ireland. 

Of the 222 companies that provide financial services that cooperate with EY, 59 said they would like to transfer some employees or create a new unit in the EU after Brexit. 19 mentioned moving to Dublin or Ireland, which makes the country the most popular place of relocation for companies. In second place is Frankfurt, it was chosen by 18 companies.

Barclays, the oldest of the four major UK banks, is one of the banks that want to transfer operations to Dublin. In January, it was reported that the bank would establish a headquarters there after Brexit.

source: bloomberg.com