Financial services chief says changes to Brussels regulations will delay process of awarding equivalence
The EU’s financial services chief has warned the City of London it may have to wait beyond the end of this year to know whether it will secure prized access rights to the whole of the bloc’s market, leaving banks and asset managers in the UK grappling with a complex patchwork of national rules.
Valdis Dombrovskis, an executive vice-president of the European Commission, said that Brussels would not be ready in the coming months to assess whether Britain qualifies for some pan-EU access rights, known as equivalence provisions, because the bloc’s own regulations are in flux.
The stance underlines the complications and uncertainty awaiting the UK’s critical financial services sector when Britain’s post-Brexit transition period expires at the end of this year. When that happens, the UK’s “financial services passport” — the right for companies to exploit the benefits of the single market — will disappear.
Unlike many other economic sectors, financial services has been largely left out of the EU-UK negotiations on a future relationship — which resume on Tuesday — because Brussels relies instead on the unilateral equivalence system for determining what access other countries should get.
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