Banks could start making decisions to move assets out of the UK as early as the end of 2017 if there is no deal in place to maintain their rights to sell services freely across the European Union, a leading thinktank has warned. “There are plans in case the UK were to leave the single market without any kind of regulatory equivalence,” he said. Scarpetta said UK negotiators had to make it clear that EU countries would not necessarily benefit from a London exodus. “The UK’s financial services sector employs 1.9m people. Clegg will warn that the under WTO rules, tariffs will also have to be applied to all imports into the UK until a trade deal with the EU is struck.

Source: The Guardian October 16, 2016 23:01 UTC