Compliance & Regulation

Skillfinder International operates in numerous compliance and regulations projects; The FCA (Financial Conduct Authority) continues to bring out European regulations that impact the post-Brexit infrastructures. There is great anticipation for companies worldwide as to what their regulatory scope is going to look like and where the hubs for those projects are going to be based, whereas before they might have been heavily based in London. Risk Mitigation is becoming ever more prevalent as institutions are starting to spread that over the other European headquarters.

State of Recruitment

Contractor or freelance setup within London has always faced difficulties; many of London’ central banks are facing quite large detanglement projects. Passporting rules are changing; infrastructure is changing off the back of that leading to a slowdown in permanent on-boarding but a little bit of a ramp up in specific contracting positions.

Location Strategy

We have encountered several organisations that are looking at different options now, with Dublin being in the limelight. Ireland is likely to see a lot of action regardless of the outcome from Brexit; many of our clients are moving their operations over there being in the same time zone as the UK and being predominantly English speaking.

Alongside Dublin, Berlin, Frankfurt and potentially Paris are viable contenders for current UK financial (and non-financial) institutions.

Trading Strategy

Controversially and more recently a lot of the broker dealers within London have begun to think about a different strategy: Keep the headcount in London the same as it is and the projects the same as they ever would be and look at doing a back to back trading model.

Back to Back Trading:

Under the Back to Back trading Model trades on the ground in the EU, with their EU clients, would be booked in the EU entity then replicated by matching trades that happen in the UK, in essence the organisation can apply the risk on EU trades on the UK balance sheet to allow time to pass for post-Brexit decisions to be made. This would allow a risk mitigation strategy whilst also maintaining headcount for the back and middle office team in London until a further future proofed strategy is developed.

Skillfinder International’s Support

As ever we are working very hard to support our clients post-Brexit in Europe. One main area of focus is obtaining a PSF license in Luxembourg ensuring that we can operate legally and fully support our Luxembourg clients. In congruence we have worked very hard to obtain our AUG license again allowing us to fully operate in Germany and adhering to the new legislation.

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