Report: Brexit will cause 40,000 investment bankers to leave Britain

LONDON (UPI) — Britain could lose up to 40,000 investment bankers as a result of Brexit, a new report says.

The report from managing consultant group Oliver Wyman says that as Britain prepares to leave the European block by 2019, British bankers working in the European financial system system could move out of London to other European finance hubs. The report states that the European Union “faces a number of broader policy questions about the future structure of the Euro financial system and whether elements of it, such as clearing, can continue to be provided from London.” It adds: “We continue to estimate that such a long-term shift in the wider financial markets ecosystem towards the EU could move around 35,000-40,000 jobs from the U.K. to the E.U. in wholesale banking alone.” Big banks are already making plans to relocate parts of their operations. CNBC reported that Citigroup, UBS and Barclays have already announced plans to relocate thousands of jobs across the E.U. The Brexit talks are still ongoing and what will happen in regards to Britain’s financial connection remains to be seen. However, the Oliver Wyman report urges financial institutions to plan as if a “hard Brexit is coming.” “With the European market set to become more fragmented and less profitable, banks will have difficult strategic trade-offs to make,” the report states. “Nonetheless, the primary focus must be to avoid a post-Brexit ‘cliff edge’ and this will require banks, policymakers, and regulators to all play a role.”