Bank of England deadline looms for finance firms’ Brexit plans

The Bank set the deadline in April and is now awaiting details of the plans being put in place to allow them to withstand the “most adverse potential outcomes” of the UK’s exit from the EU.

Scenarios the Bank wants firms to be in a position to react to include the UK leaving the EU without a trade agreement, or without the establishing of an implementation period, or with no co-operation over regulation and no so-called mutual recognition, which allows products to be sold cross-border.

Friday’s deadline places the same obligations on non-British fims, with big US and Japanese banks that use the UK as their way into the EU also required to spell out their plans.

EU banks which operate in Britain through “passporting” arrangements will also need to disclose their Brexit plans.

It is expected that planning will largely involve the establishing of separate offices located within the EU to allow normal business to continue unhindered.

The Bank has asked for summaries of plans of up to 20 pages for some of the firms. However, a number of largely UK-focused organisations are allowed to provide more succinct submissions.

Andrew Gray, head of Brexit at PwC, who advises businesses on how to deal with the UK’s exit from the EU, said he expected banks to be providing “observations about what consumers they could continue to serve, and where they would see the problems and how they would solve them”. He added that each submission to the bank is also expected to set out “how the board of directors is being kept up to date”.

But, he said, it was too early for them to spell out the details of how many jobs might have to move abroad.