Bloomberg: A $240-billion-a-day market is leaving London ahead of Brexit

06 November 2018

CME Group Inc. is moving its European market for short-term financing, the largest in the region, out of London because the exchange operator wants to guarantee continental firms can continue to use it if there is a no-deal Brexit.

The decision, which was taken before CME took over the business from NEX Group Plc last week, is the first example of a major financial market leaving the U.K. While every sizable trading venue has set up a regulated entity in the EU because of Brexit, BrokerTec -- as the business is known -- is the first to move an existing market from London to a continental European city: Amsterdam.

“All of our euro-denominated bonds and repo will move to Amsterdam,” John Edwards, managing director of BrokerTec Europe, said in an interview. “We saw no benefit in splitting liquidity pools. Our U.K. business will not be able to provide services to the European clients.”

Contingency Plans

BrokerTec isn’t alone in planning for the worst. Stifel Financial Corp. is ensuring it can continue offering financial services in Europe by buying the brokerage operations of Germany’s MainFirst Holding AG. And BNP Paribas SA plans to move between 85 and 90 employees from its global markets unit in London to other European financial centers in case of a hard Brexit. [...]

Full article on Bloomberg


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