AUTHORITIES in the German city of Frankfurt started preparing three months ago for a potential influx of banking staff from the UK following Brexit, The National can reveal.
HSBC and Swiss bank UBS have already announced they will move up to 2,000 jobs from London. Meanwhile Barclays is considering routing activities through Ireland and Germany as financial workers in the City lose “passporting” rights with other EU member countries after Brexit. US bank Goldman Sachs is to move up to 1,000 staff from London to Frankfurt, part of a reorganisation that will reduce its City staff by half.
Frankfurt – a city of three-quarters of a million people which already houses the HQ of the European Central Bank – aims to attract many more banks and financial institutions from London.
Udo Seiwert-Fauti, a senior correspondent who reports European affairs for Scotland and Scottish affairs to German-speaking audiences across Europe, told The National: “Three months ago the federal state of Hesse and the city of Frankfurt set up a taskforce to deal with housing, housebuilding and infrastructure, to be ready for people coming from London. They also planned to extend the area around the city by up to 90 kilometres (55 miles). And around 600 Brits have already applied for German passports, just in case they are moved to Frankfurt.”
He said that the exodus would have far-reaching effects.
“It means less taxes, less investment in shops, in supermarkets, less investment into National Insurance, in flats and houses and could mean a hole somewhere in the UK budget.
“These highly-paid investment bankers have families, children who also want to be fed and housed. That could mean about 3-4,000 people leaving.”
Seiwert-Fauti said that if Scotland remained in the EU – which he thinks is highly probable – the bankers could head to Edinburgh instead of elsewhere in Europe. He added that health services across Britain would suffer if immigration restrictions on EU nationals were enforced.
He said: “We all know how many nurses and doctors from EU countries and especially Germany are working in this system. Go to Little France in Edinburgh and ask. And then there are the academics, who will be excluded from EU funding in science and research.”
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