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Barclays has no plans to move jobs out of UK because of Brexit, Jes Staley says

Mr Staley did not rule out changes to Barclays' business model in order for it to maintain access to capital markets

Hazel Sheffield

Thursday 30 June 2016 15:34 BST

Jes Staley, the chief executive of Barclays, has said the bank has no plans to move people out of the UK (Getty)

Jes Staley, the chief executive of Barclays, has said the bank has no plans to move people out of the UK because of Brexit.

"We are a British bank, our history is here in the UK so first and foremost we are staying anchored in London and anchored in Great Britain," Mr Staley said.

He said that it was too early to say what would happen with passporting, or the ability for financial institutions to do business with the whole of the EU.

But he noted that since 2008, global financial regulators had been relunctant to "build protectionist walls" around markets.

"I don’t think any regulators want the US banks to be prohibited to come to Europe, or to the UK any more than the desire for the UK banks being limited in what they can do in the US and in Europe,

"Now whether it will take a different construct than what we have today that is possible, but right now we are not making any plans to pick and move people from one place to another it is way too early I think to be thinking about that," Mr Staley told the BBC.

Michel Sapin shocked at lack of Brexit planning

However he did not rule out changes to Barclays' business model in order for it to maintain access to capital markets that are vital for traders to do business around the globe.

"We want to stay connected to the European capital markets and we will adjust our business model to make sure we have access to those capital markets," he said.

6 ways Britain leaving the EU will affect you

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1/66 ways Britain leaving the EU will affect you

6 ways Britain leaving the EU will affect you

More expensive foreign holidays

The first practical effect of a vote to Leave is that the pound will be worth less abroad, meaning foreign holidays will cost us more

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6 ways Britain leaving the EU will affect you

No immediate change in immigration status

The Prime Minister will have to address other immediate concerns. He is likely to reassure nationals of other EU countries living in the UK that their status is unchanged. That is what the Leave campaign has said, so, even after the Brexit negotiations are complete, those who are already in the UK would be allowed to stay

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6 ways Britain leaving the EU will affect you

Higher inflation

A lower pound means that imports would become more expensive. This is likely to mean the return of inflation – a phenomenon with which many of us are unfamiliar because prices have been stable for so long, rising at no more than about 2 per cent a year. The effect may probably not be particularly noticeable in the first few months. At first price rises would be confined to imported goods – food and clothes being the most obvious – but inflation has a tendency to spread and to gain its own momentum

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6 ways Britain leaving the EU will affect you

Interest rates might rise

The trouble with inflation is that the Bank of England has a legal obligation to keep it as close to 2 per cent a year as possible. If a fall in the pound threatens to push prices up faster than this, the Bank will raise interest rates. This acts against inflation in three ways. First, it makes the pound more attractive, because deposits in pounds will earn higher interest. Second, it reduces demand by putting up the cost of borrowing, and especially by taking larger mortgage payments out of the economy. Third, it makes it more expensive for businesses to borrow to expand output

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6 ways Britain leaving the EU will affect you

Did somebody say recession?

Mr Carney, the Treasury and a range of international economists have warned about this. Many Leave voters appear not to have believed them, or to think that they are exaggerating small, long-term effects. But there is no doubt that the Leave vote is a negative shock to the economy. This is because it changes expectations about the economy’s future performance. Even though Britain is not actually be leaving the EU for at least two years, companies and investors will start to move money out of Britain, or to scale back plans for expansion, because they are less confident about what would happen after 2018

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6 ways Britain leaving the EU will affect you

And we wouldn’t even get our money back

All this will be happening while the Prime Minister, whoever he or she is, is negotiating the terms of our future access to the EU single market. In the meantime, our trade with the EU would be unaffected, except that companies elsewhere in the EU may be less interested in buying from us or selling to us, expecting tariff barriers to go up in two years’ time. Whoever the Chancellor is, he or she may feel the need to bring in a new Budget

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His comments come as UK-based banks start to review their position following the shock decision for the UK to leave the EU on Thursday June 23.

Douglas Flint, HSBC chairman, said on Thursday that his bank would stick to its plan to keep its headquarters in the UK.

Goldman Sachs has not ruled out moving staff from the UK to Europe following Brexit. Richard Gnodde, the co-head of the investment banking division of Goldman Sachs said, that “every outcome is possible”

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