BlackRock and JPMorgan could help Paris steal London’s financial crown after Brexit

Paris,
France.
Greg Sandoval/Business
Insider

• JPMorgan and BlackRock are poised to announce job moves to
  Paris, according to the FT.
• It comes as banks worry about the rising risk of a ‘hard’
  Brexit, which would cut London-headquartered banks off from
  European markets.

LONDON — JPMorgan and BlackRock are poised to announce the move
of jobs from London to Paris as part of preparations for Brexit,

the Financial Times reported over the weekend.

The paper cited unnamed sources familiar with the financial
firms’ thinking. JPMorgan and BlackRock both declined to comment
to Business Insider.

The possible movement of jobs comes as banks increasingly fear
the consequences of a so-called “hard Brexit.” Once seen as
highly unlikely, many senior figures in the City now worry that
there is a realistic chance of Britain crashing out of the EU
without a deal on their future relationship. Executives are
executing back up plans to ensure their businesses are not locked
out of the EU after the official Brexit date next March.

The FT
warned in a separate report on Monday that banks are
considering exiting the UK derivatives market for fear that they
will not be allowed to access London clearing houses post-Brexit.
UBS said in a note last month that it
expects LCH, London’s biggest clearing house, to lose at least
25% of its volumes as a result of Brexit.

Cities such as Dublin, Frankfurt, and Milan have become popular
destinations as banks and trading firms look to relocate jobs to
EU regulated jurisdictions. Paris appears to be a major
beneficiary. Bank of America Merrill Lynch and
HSBC have both said they may move 1,000 jobs each to the French
capital. Around 70 asset managers are in the process of
acquiring licenses to operate in France, according to the FT
report, with
BlackRock the biggest.

The French have been aggressively
wooing financiers in the City of London since Britain votes to
leave the EU in June 2016. Senior lobbyists and politicians
from Paris said last year that
10,000 jobs in the financial sector could migrate to the City
from London as a result of Brexit.

Executives from JPMorgan, Citi, and Barclays Ireland played down
job move fears in a recent evidence session for UK MPs. The three
banks said they expect job moves in the hundreds in the immediate
wake of Brexit. But JPMorgan’s Mark Garvin
warned that the figures he offered were just “day one” moves and
he can “envision a scenario where those numbers could be
substantially larger.”