Ireland pushing hard for UK financial services firms

Andy jalil -

andyjalil@aol.com -

The Irish government has had its eyes on the UK’s thriving fintech (financial technology) sector — where London has dominated in Europe — ever since the Brexit vote and is intensifying its bid to attract start-ups to Dublin.

Eoghan Murphy, Ireland’s Finance Services Minister has visited the financial district of London with experts in fintech and payments with the goal of selling Ireland’s capital city as an alternative for doing business in Europe.

Backed by IDA Ireland, its inward investment agency, and William Fry, one of the country’s top law firms, the plan has been to showcase Ireland’s selling points, including start-up-friendly regulators who have recently sped up the e-money licence application process.

The UK fintech start-ups are offered the opportunity to gain insight into the process, with a follow-up workshop planned with the Irish Central Bank. It has also been handed a boost to its reputation after Facebook secured an e-money licence in the country at the end of 2015.

Murphy has been pointing out the position of Ireland’s financial sector.

Already home to 6,000 funds managing two trillion euros of assets, Dublin is vying to become a potential outpost in the EU for Britain’s £5.7 trillion asset management industry after Brexit.

He said: “While we have existing strengths in key areas, and it would make sense to continue developing those areas of strengths, we are also looking to new areas to answer the needs we think people are going to have after Brexit negotiations are concluded.”

He added, “This isn’t about taking advantage of a difficulty that the UK is in, we are not seeking an opportunity, but we do recognise that businesses will have needs as a result of Brexit and we are there to help manage those needs.”

Last year, the Irish government set out ambitions to grow its IFS (International Financial Services) sector from 35,000 to at least 45,000 people under a scheme called IFS 2020. And the UK’s vote could provide a significant boost.

“We’d be confident of getting the 10,000, and everything else that we get above that will be seen as a plus,” Murphy said.

“There were plans to launch (IFS 2020) abroad. But once Brexit happened, we basically doubled or tripled the number of cities that we were going to hit, and the number of things that we were going to do when we were there to maximise the opportunity to talk about Ireland’s offering post-Brexit.”

IDA Ireland is aiming to encourage international firms to invest in the country. While ministers like Murphy front the nations push for expansion, IDA Ireland is working on technical details behind the scene.

Its head of IFS, Kieran Donoghue, reveals that the organisation has received more than 70 queries from financial services firms since the June referendum.

He said: “We are not being opportunistic about this. We did not go to London in advance of June and say to groups: ‘come to Dublin’. We did not want a Brexit.

We just didn’t believe it was in the best interests of this jurisdiction.” He further said: “The (large, high-profile) companies have indicated to us that they have to take a decision by the summer.”

In fact, Citigroup’s Chief Executive for Europe, Middle East and Africa, James Cowles, has indicated that his firm is in the process of looking for a new home for its broker-dealer business. The firm moved the HQ of its retail and commercial bank from London to Dublin in 2015.

Cowles said the bank “will be making a decision in the first half of this year,” adding:

“It’s a decision that every bank has to make and they need to do it in the first half of this year.”

Major banking group Barclays, which had earmarked Dublin in Brexit contingency plan, is preparing to boost its operations there and use the Irish capital as its main base in the European Union if British banks are forced to relocate their EU businesses because of Brexit.

The bank, which already has about 120 employees in Ireland, has now estimated it may have to move 150 jobs to Dublin if the UK’s secession from the EU makes it difficult for banks to sell their services across the continent.

Currently Barclays has corporate banking and wealth management employees in the Irish capital.