Asian focused bank HSBC plans to move jobs out of Britain before negotiations over Brexit end, the bank’s chairman has told British lawmakers. No mention was made of jobs being shifted to Asia, yet.
HSBC has warned that it might start moving staff out of London in the next few months if Brexit uncertainties are not cleared up, according to a report in the U.K. publication «The Telegraph»
Speaking before a hearing of the treasury select committee of the U.K. House of Commons, HSBC chairman Douglas Flint said «The ecosystem in London is like a Jenga Tower. You don’t know if you pull one brick out what will happen,»
The committee chairman Andrew Tyrie asked Flint on what he feared from the vote and if bankers would leave.
«Nobody wants to push the button. The status quo is the best answer. But our regulators and our customers expect us to plan for the worst,» replied Flint.
Vive la France
HSBC’s huge custodian business might have to move after Brexit, unless there is a clear «grandfathering» of present regulations into the new world.
HSBC has a full-service bank in France, and in the event it loses passporting rights to provide certain financial services in the European Union as a result of Brexit, it would move activities to France, or indeed to Ireland or Holland or any other place within Europe where it has operations.
Flint said that Paris is the likely destination of operations that might be moved. It had been earlier reported that HSBC might move about 1,000 jobs to the French capital.
The HSBC chairman urged British lawmakers to take a firmer stance in the Brexit negotiations to avoid thousands of jobs being moved away from London.
Asia HSBC's Cash Cow
HSBC spent months debating on whether to re-locate its corporate HQ back to Asia or remain in London, with the U.K. capital winning out in the end. The decision was no doubt influenced by the analysts predictions that Brexit would not happen, in June 2016 the British people did not share that view.
In February last year Norman Chan the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) responded to the conclusion of the Board of HSBC to stay in the U.K. when he said, «We note that The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, which is headquartered in Hong Kong, has all along been the biggest source of profits for the HSBC Group,»
