11 March 2021

FT: Amsterdam: Europe’s surprise early winner as Brexit shakes up the City

Authorities in the Netherlands were anxious ahead of Brexit. Unlike counterparts in other European capitals who saw opportunity in Britain’s withdrawal from the EU — the chance to pick up more business and financial services jobs — the Dutch government worried about a blow to its economy as a major trading partner left the bloc.

The Dutch government ran a public awareness campaign to alert companies to the dangers. It portrayed Brexit as an annoying blue furry monster, an obstruction that prevented Dutch businesses from getting to meetings or delayed transport shipments to Britain. Stef Blok, the foreign minister, tweeted: “Make sure Brexit doesn’t sit — or lie — in your way.”

Yet since the UK left the single market nine weeks ago, Brexit has been as much an opportunity as an obstruction to the Netherlands. In the race to scoop up business leaving London it is Amsterdam, and not larger banking centres such as Frankfurt and Paris, that has shone. With EU regulators striving to regain oversight of all euro-denominated business, Amsterdam has already displaced London as Europe’s main centre for share trading as more than €8bn a day of EU share dealing was forced back into the bloc. The Dutch financial capital has also taken more than 20 per cent of the euro swaps market and more than $160bn on the sovereign debt trading markets. That transfer will be further supplemented in June, when trading of Europe’s €1bn-a-day flagship carbon emissions market also relocates to Amsterdam.

“The city is booming. The international schools are building like crazy. The business that’s come is a natural consequence of Brexit,” says Guus Warringa, a director of Stichting Capital Amsterdam, a foundation that promotes Dutch public markets. Even so, he acknowledges it has come as a surprise to some observers. “There was no plan to get Londoners to Amsterdam.”...

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