City banks: please keep all EU red tape

Kohoutek

Including the bonus cap.

Six months ago, most City of London bankers had a long list of regulations they wanted to scrap. But the Brexit vote has changed all that.

As the banks recover from the referendum result, they are drawing up plans to lobby politicians to keep financial regulation intact and to ensure the sector suffers as little disruption as possible from leaving the EU.

“It is important that we do not have a bonfire of EU red tape, because it could damage our relations with the EU,” Anthony Browne, head of the British Bankers’ Association, told the Financial Times before attending Tuesday’s meeting


He said this even included the EU bonus cap, which was begrudgingly introduced by the UK after an aborted legal challenge to the provision, which is unpopular among bankers as it caps their bonuses at one-times salary, or double their salary with shareholder approval.

Several of the big investment banks are already drawing up plans to move jobs and activities out of the UK if they lose their passporting rights. Chris Cummings, head of TheCityUK lobby group, said: “The number one request from financial services companies is continued access to the single market.”

As a result, bankers are wary of anything that might antagonise Brussels and that could jeopardise the UK gaining “equivalence” — legalese for allowing non-EU financial companies and products access to the single market as long as the rules they abide by in their home country are broadly in line with the EU’s.

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