April 28, 2022
The future of UK banking and finance
The Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center has teamed up with New Financial to produce an ambitious blueprint for the future of UK banking and finance.
Clear and concise, our 62 recommendations cover all these areas while emphasizing the need for more rapid reform in three broad areas:
· Enabling the sector to better support the UK economy
· Improving its international competitiveness
· Mapping the role it can play in developing global cooperation and partnerships
Our blueprint is resolute in calling for a new regulatory framework that is dynamic, outcomes-based, and data-led. Brexit provides the UK with an imperative to rethink its role as a banking and finance hub. The financial bubble should move on from debating the trade-off between divergence from the EU rule book and access to the Single Market.
Specific recommendations on prudential and market policy should help the industry better support the wider UK economy. We are also adamant about the “digital first” approach the UK should be taking, with the aim of leading global innovation in areas such as data sharing, open banking and digital IDs.
Our analysis suggests that the UK has the potential to achieve as much as 40 percent growth in its capital markets, with nearly two thousand additional companies a year could raise an additional $75 billion per year in the capital markets, an increase of around 40 percent. This will have enormous implications both for the UK and the global economy.
The launch of this report was marked by a conference held at Banqueting House in London. UK Economic Secretary to the Treasury John Glen provided keynote remarks. Following his address, the conference examined the key domestic and international implications of the report in two high-level panels.
At the intersection of economics, finance, and foreign policy, the GeoEconomics Center is a translation hub with the goal of helping shape a better global economic future.
Image: Tower Bridge and City Skyline, London, England. Photo by MrSmithWorldPhotography.