Dublin beats Paris and Frankfurt in post-Brexit City job moves

Dublin has emerged as an early winner in the battle for City jobs post-Brexit after it was picked by a quarter of firms forced to move business to an EU hub, new research shows.

New Financial, a think tank, has identified 135 firms that have relocated business to Dublin as a result of Brexit. Some 102 firms picked Paris, 95 opted for Luxembourg, 63 Frankfurt and 48 Amsterdam.

Broken down by sector, a third of all asset management firms have opted for Dublin, while 60pc of banks have chosen Frankfurt and nearly two thirds of firms moving to Amsterdam are trading platforms, exchanges or broking firms.

More than £900bn in bank assets - about 10pc of the entire UK banking system - has also moved or is being moved out of the UK as a result of Brexit.

William Wright, the managing director of New Financial and a co-author of the report, said Frankfurt would be the "winner" in terms of assets in the longer term, while Paris could still take Dublin's crown in terms of jobs.

"The real impact of Brexit is unlikely to fully emerge until the dust finally settles in a few years time," he said.

MPs were warned by Douglas Flint, the former HSBC chairman, in 2017 that Brexit could trigger a “Jenga tower” of job losses in a reference to the game where a whole tower of wooden blocks can topple just by pulling just one piece out.

Xavier Rolet, the former chief executive of the London Stock Exchange, also told ministers he believed some 232,000 financial services roles were at risk.

However, the forecasts on job losses are yet to materialise. According to EY, only 7,600 financial services jobs have moved out of the UK due to Brexit - a tiny proportion of jobs in the UK’s finance sector.

The UK has been stripped of its passporting rights, which gave full access to EU markets, and financial services was largely excluded from the Brexit trade deal.

More London bankers, having given up any hope of getting full access to EU financial markets, are preparing to move in the coming months and Bank of England officials are understood to have grown concerned that more people are moving than necessary.