CityAM, May 12th, Barnabas Reynolds
Now the UK and US have commenced trade negotiations, focus should turn to the benefits both parties could achieve through a deal in financial services. Connecting the UK’s and US’s financial markets, and their wider national ecosystems, would be a huge prize.
It would give US corporates and consumers the cheapest possible access to the global financial offerings available from London, sitting, as it does, astride the world’s main time zones and servicing markets from Asia to Europe, Africa and beyond. It would give the UK direct access to a US customer base without the barriers of expensively duplicative US regulation or on the ground operations.
UK financial businesses – particularly in its innovative FinTech sector – are crying out for the ability to sell more easily into the US market. In addition, firms on both sides of the Atlantic could operate through presences in the other more cheaply than now, with each side placing greater reliance on the efficacy of the other’s home state regulation.
This game-changing opportunity arises because the UK and US host the main global financial markets, London and New York, which have not hitherto been linked by a trade deal. Indeed, right now they operate at relative arm’s length.
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