Of course, they are banks. But this is all due to passporting rights, giving UK based financial services firms hassle free access to selling their crappy ‘products’ to punters in Prague and Lisbon and everywhere else in the EU with no barriers. Frankly I couldn’t give a **** if they all collapse in flames (apart from the ones looking after my pension of course) they add no value to anyone and the people working for them would be better human beings if they had to do something else. The only loss to us if they **** off is the tax take from these monster corporations and their high paid parasitic grunts. As DT has been telling us for ages all these companies know that there is no deal that can be done short of staying in the Single Market which will include services, so they have been shifting their assets, corporate identity and a few people around since June 2016. As of last October the Bank of Ireland was processing over 100 applications from investment management, insurance, banking and payments companies to move their registered centre of operations to Ireland. Bank of America/Merrill Lynch completed its move to Dublin last year. It will be shifting a load of jobs to France after 29 March (they aren’t hiding anything about their plans). Of course they all still have branches in London.
Financial services isn’t as big a contributor to the economy as we are lead to believe, and the amount that is earned overseas is even smaller. I suspect it’s main contribution is the inflation of house prices in London. But a lot of people make their meagre livings servicing these people, cleaning their offices, overcharging for their plumbing, selling them sandwiches etc.
