01 August 2021

FT: City of London grapples with wave of post-Brexit regulation

A wave of UK government reforms designed to make the City of London more attractive after Brexit has already had one unintended consequence:Finance industry executives cancel summer holidays to deal with workload

The sheer volume of consultations meant there was no time for a break this August, said a policy specialist at one large British asset manager. “It is overwhelming at the moment.”

For British politicians keen to take advantage of newfound freedoms and escape what they see as ill-fitting rules dictated by Brussels, the reforms are vital to ensuring London remains competitive as a leading financial hub. But many big asset managers are sceptical of the rhetoric about cutting red tape, not least because they operate globally and want rules that allow them to continue to access markets with the least cost.

“We don’t see it as a competition between the UK and EU,” said Sheila Nicoll, head of public policy at Schroders, London’s largest listed asset manager. “There are opportunities and needs for the whole market to grow, so the two sides of the Channel are not competing against each other for business. We are competing together to grow the overall pot.”

Still, more than 70 per cent of those working in the UK asset management industry believe the City’s competitiveness has deteriorated since the 2016 referendum, and research from New Financial, a think-tank, this year found that insurance companies and asset managers have transferred more than £100bn in assets and funds from Britain to the EU in response to Brexit.

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Bar chart of Number of companies reacting to UK leaving the EU (by sector) showing Asset managers have been the most responsive to Brexit

After months of informal consultation with the industry, the UK government has now published hundreds of pages of proposed reforms. They include overhauling the UK’s listing regime, changes to the EU-wide Mifid II financial markets rules, the Solvency II insurance regulations and the PRIIPS rules for how investment products are marketed to consumers....

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