In addition to a number of other players in the financial sector, JP Morgan has confirmed that it will be relocating a number of staff to Luxembourg, as well as to Dublin and Frankfurt, in lieu of the UK's decision to leave the European Union.
Treasury services are likely to move to Luxembourg, custody services to Dublin and investment banking to Frankfurt, with between 500 and 1,000 staff affected initially. American insurance company AIG confirmed recently that it will open an operation in Luxembourg due to Brexit.
Prior to the UK referendum on 23 June last year, JP Morgan CEO had told employees in the UK that as many as 4,000 could be relocated in the event of Brexit.
The reason for the move is to preserve easy access to the EU Single Market, particularly in the absence of any UK-EU passporting deal, with Daniel Pinto, JP Morgan's Head of Investment Banking, stating that the US-headquarterd bank is going to use the three banks they already have in Europe as the "anchors for our operations". He confirmed that the bank "will have to move hundreds of people in the short term to be ready for day one, when negotiations finish, and then we will look at the longer-term numbers".
JP Morgan employs circa 500 staff in Luxembourg. Last September, it announced 105 projected redundancies following the relocation of a part of its fund accounting and transfer agency activities to Edinburgh and India. In October, following union negotiations, this number was reduced to a maximum of 93, mainly through internal redeployment.
Other major banks to consider relocating some staff to other EU financial centres are Standard Charter (Frankfurt), Deutsche Bank, Barclays (probably Dublin) and Goldman Sachs.
