€50tn of derivatives trades could be lost from the UK in 4 weeks time

[_V_]

I'm so old I remember when €50trn was a lot of money.

[dsc]

All those financial peoples should simply get over it and be joyful that they have won their (never lost) sovereignty back. And then everything will be just fine, remember, we won the war and long live the queen and some other try-hard-and-believe bollocks all those little Englander Gammons who've never been abroad (or retired in Spain) keep repeating.

[AtW]

Indeed, or even the £1billion a day via EMI’s all about to go because of no financial passporting

There will be blue passport tho, made in EU

[GhostofTarbera]

There is 600 mln quid worth of fish at stake, who cares about 50 trillion derivatives, it’s not like they are fish futures

Indeed, or even the £1billion a day via EMI’s all about to go because of no financial passporting


Sent from my iPhone using Contractor UK Forum

[AtW]

There is 600 mln quid worth of fish at stake, who cares about 50 trillion derivatives, it’s not like they are fish futures

[Eirikur]

PS: FT links seem to open fully and for free from their twitter feed (at least in incognito mode)

[Eirikur]

Subscribe to read | Financial Times

Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email [email protected] to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found at Take a tour — Hints and tips on getting more from your subscription — FT.com | Financial Times.
Subscribe to read | Financial Times

Financial regulation is rarely a thriller. But the clash over derivatives in Europe is becoming a page-turner. On Wednesday, EU securities watchdog Esma raised the stakes, declining to amend the rules on swaps contracts for EU banks operating in the UK. That creates a cliffhanger. A significant proportion of €50tn of derivatives trades could be lost from the UK when the Brexit transition period ends in just five weeks.

Esma hinted UK regulators were to blame for the impasse. In reality, responsibility lies with politicians. The torpid negotiations of the past four-and-a-half years have largely ignored financial services. An agreement is still possible. But chances of a breakthrough are getting slimmer by the day.

They would rise if Brussels and London reached a trade accord. This would lift the mood and lessen concerns about cherry picking by the UK. At the moment, the City is a hostage to trade talks, registering the damage that intransigence on either side may cause.

The EU is well aware of the importance of finance to the UK. It accounts for more than a tenth of all tax receipts and a fifth of services exports.

Some financiers think the loss of some financial business is a price worth paying. As former Bank of England governor Mark Carney said, the City is too big to be a rule taker. Optimists think moving away from a one-size-fits-all regime could help UK finance form new partnerships. That would offset lost business with the EU, now just under 40 per cent of the UK’s trade in financial services.

It would be wrong to overstate the impact of the latest Esma edict. It affects only a subset of derivative trades, namely the most actively traded contracts such as interest rate swaps that have to change hands on an EU venue. They are dwarfed by the over-the-counter derivatives trading market in Europe, which will be little affected by Brexit, at least in the short term. In all, the EU derivatives market was worth €681tn in 2019, with the UK involved in four-fifths of the trades, according to Esma.

The EU is keen to get a grip on this trading, which will however remain elusive for the moment. EU financial centres can already see the glittering prizes from repatriation of business. Paris has just secured a new “dark pool” share trading platform from Goldman Sachs and a listing from Segro, the UK’s biggest property company.

A beggar-thy-neighbour battle for business will benefit Paris, Frankfurt and Dublin less than some EU politicians and regulators imagine. Displaced trading will also flow to financial centres with deep, liquid pools of capital and rules closely enough aligned to those of the EU to be deemed equivalent. New York would be the obvious beneficiary.