4 ms·

Having worked in the City since the 90s, I've seen the Euro conversion come and go, which would end the City, then more EU attempts to centralise finance in Fra

Having worked in the City since the 90s, I've seen the Euro conversion come and go, which would end the City, then more EU attempts to centralise finance in Frankfurt, would end the City, and also Japan/HK/Singapore/Beijing, would end the City. Frankfurt is another hour away from New York, and English isn't the first language. The vast array people with financial skills are in London. I won't argue that this isn't significant, but it's assets, not people. And let's not forget Gordon Brown's "light touch regulation" led to lower costs for financial companies operating out of London, due to less regulation and bureaucracy than the EU. It also helped fuel the credit crunch as well. So there's v2 of that to look forward to if the next UK government decides to relax oversight to attract businesses.

HatchedLake721 6y ago
It’s not only people, it looks like EY moved 7,500 roles and £1.2trn out of UK to the European Union. But I agree, while it’s significant, it won’t be significant enough for anything major.
- cromka 6y ago
  > EY moved 7,500 roles and £1.2trn out of UK to the European Union > it won’t be significant enough for anything major. Whith the EY example being one company only, I don't think it's warranted to call it "nothing major". In fact, I know it: I work for an investment bank and we're moving vast majority of our UK-managed assets to EU. Roles are moving slower than expected, but with the assets being managed in EU, it's only a matter of time before the UK roles become redundant if employees refuse to move. Almost all my team's work during last 24 months was related to Brexit and the change of legal entity. It's major. Very major.
  - HatchedLake721 6y ago
    Yes, I agree it’s significant and major (for the UK), but I don’t think it’s major enough to dethrone London from being one of the world’s financial centers and have it replaced by Frankfurt for example.
  - DrBazza 6y ago
    I've had a different experience. Some of my work in the bank has been Brexit/EU related, but from experience, it's nothing like the effort we put in for the Euro conversion or Y2K. I'm more confident that any 'damage' done to London will be a consequence of remote working practices from COVID, and not current politics between Europe and the UK.
  - user5994461 6y ago
    Had the opposite experience. Worked in an investment bank since Brexit was announced years ago and this has changed nothing at all whatsoever. Nonetheless, I can recall 3 news articles saying the bank would close shop in London and the last one specifically called out my department to be closed. None of it was true, in fact we were still hiring. Lesson learned that newspapers would say anything for eyeballs.
LatteLazy 6y ago
Have you ever been to frankfurt? It's not perfect, but their English is a lot better than most brits...
- DrBazza 6y ago
  Yes, in fact I lived there for 6 months. These articles never mention or underestimate the Anglosphere. NY+London work well together because of a shared language, and overlapping time zone, and similar work ethics. I'd see far higher percentage of UK employees working late to overlap with NY than I ever saw in Frankfurt. That extra hour makes a big difference.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - LatteLazy 6y ago
    I don't know, I think that's cultural more than anything else. In the UK (in finance at least) you're there till the job is done and your bonus nreflect that. In Germany, your there for set hours and being great or terrible won't make much difference so why bother? If people made the arguement that London is good at finance because londoners (and it is londoners, not brits overall) want it more, I'd agree. When people say it's the language or the timezone I'm very unconvinced. Otherwise, why hasn't Ireland eaten our lunch?
    - lmm 6y ago
      Ireland is the same timezone as the UK and doesn't have any real global cities. Dublin hasn't eaten London's lunch for the same reason that Liverpool or Newcastle haven't.
morsch 6y ago
Frankfurt is one hour closer to Beijing, though...
x87678r 6y ago
An important reason London is always better than Frankfurt & Amsterdam at least is that its a big city and the city needs literally hundreds of thousands of skilled people. The fascinating thing is that is changing, computerization is replacing people and Covid has shown people working remotely works. NY is the same, used to be special but slowly teams will be moving out. Your friendly stock broker is already a server, right now your fund manager is turning into one as well. Bond market is slowly chopping up people as well. So London is much more easily dissolved now.
- mantap 6y ago
  It works both ways. People in London can benefit from remote working even if headquarters are somewhere else. In a world where work is conducted over the internet, the status of a city is dependent far more on what kind of place it is to live rather than which businesses are nominally based there. And I just don't see the rich and powerful moving from London to Frankfurt any time soon.
mixmastamyk 6y ago
What city?
- DrBazza 6y ago
  "Wall Street/The Street" = NY, "The City" = "City of London". Commonly used terms to refer to both.
  - mixmastamyk 6y ago
    Hmm, oddly provincial expression on an international site. ;-)
tonyedgecombe 6y ago
I'm not a fan of Brexit but the UK is top heavy on financial services, it's almost like the Dutch disease[1] where outsized success in one sector tends to supress others. I wouldn't loose any sleep over it shrinking a little. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease

HatchedLake721 6y ago

It’s not only people, it looks like EY moved 7,500 roles and £1.2trn out of UK to the European Union. But I agree, while it’s significant, it won’t be significant enough for anything major.

cromka 6y ago
> EY moved 7,500 roles and £1.2trn out of UK to the European Union > it won’t be significant enough for anything major. Whith the EY example being one company only, I don't think it's warranted to call it "nothing major". In fact, I know it: I work for an investment bank and we're moving vast majority of our UK-managed assets to EU. Roles are moving slower than expected, but with the assets being managed in EU, it's only a matter of time before the UK roles become redundant if employees refuse to move. Almost all my team's work during last 24 months was related to Brexit and the change of legal entity. It's major. Very major.
- HatchedLake721 6y ago
  Yes, I agree it’s significant and major (for the UK), but I don’t think it’s major enough to dethrone London from being one of the world’s financial centers and have it replaced by Frankfurt for example.
- DrBazza 6y ago
  I've had a different experience. Some of my work in the bank has been Brexit/EU related, but from experience, it's nothing like the effort we put in for the Euro conversion or Y2K. I'm more confident that any 'damage' done to London will be a consequence of remote working practices from COVID, and not current politics between Europe and the UK.
- user5994461 6y ago
  Had the opposite experience. Worked in an investment bank since Brexit was announced years ago and this has changed nothing at all whatsoever. Nonetheless, I can recall 3 news articles saying the bank would close shop in London and the last one specifically called out my department to be closed. None of it was true, in fact we were still hiring. Lesson learned that newspapers would say anything for eyeballs.

LatteLazy 6y ago

Have you ever been to frankfurt? It's not perfect, but their English is a lot better than most brits...

DrBazza 6y ago
Yes, in fact I lived there for 6 months. These articles never mention or underestimate the Anglosphere. NY+London work well together because of a shared language, and overlapping time zone, and similar work ethics. I'd see far higher percentage of UK employees working late to overlap with NY than I ever saw in Frankfurt. That extra hour makes a big difference.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- LatteLazy 6y ago
  I don't know, I think that's cultural more than anything else. In the UK (in finance at least) you're there till the job is done and your bonus nreflect that. In Germany, your there for set hours and being great or terrible won't make much difference so why bother? If people made the arguement that London is good at finance because londoners (and it is londoners, not brits overall) want it more, I'd agree. When people say it's the language or the timezone I'm very unconvinced. Otherwise, why hasn't Ireland eaten our lunch?
  - lmm 6y ago
    Ireland is the same timezone as the UK and doesn't have any real global cities. Dublin hasn't eaten London's lunch for the same reason that Liverpool or Newcastle haven't.

morsch 6y ago

Frankfurt is one hour closer to Beijing, though...

x87678r 6y ago

An important reason London is always better than Frankfurt & Amsterdam at least is that its a big city and the city needs literally hundreds of thousands of skilled people. The fascinating thing is that is changing, computerization is replacing people and Covid has shown people working remotely works. NY is the same, used to be special but slowly teams will be moving out. Your friendly stock broker is already a server, right now your fund manager is turning into one as well. Bond market is slowly chopping up people as well. So London is much more easily dissolved now.

mantap 6y ago
It works both ways. People in London can benefit from remote working even if headquarters are somewhere else. In a world where work is conducted over the internet, the status of a city is dependent far more on what kind of place it is to live rather than which businesses are nominally based there. And I just don't see the rich and powerful moving from London to Frankfurt any time soon.

mixmastamyk 6y ago

What city?

DrBazza 6y ago
"Wall Street/The Street" = NY, "The City" = "City of London". Commonly used terms to refer to both.
- mixmastamyk 6y ago
  Hmm, oddly provincial expression on an international site. ;-)

tonyedgecombe 6y ago

I'm not a fan of Brexit but the UK is top heavy on financial services, it's almost like the Dutch disease[1] where outsized success in one sector tends to supress others. I wouldn't loose any sleep over it shrinking a little. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease