A recent poll by Financial News found that two-thirds of financial technology firms believe that leaving the EU would produce a negative impact on the UK startup scene. ACI Worldwide also recently warned that a Brexit would be a disaster and would jeopardize London’s role as a central hub for financial services in Europe, cryptocoinsnews.com reports.
Among the risks are UK’s fintech human capital, which amounts to 30% coming from the EU and overseas; a lack of say in the single European capital market and digital single market, which is estimated to contribute an additional EUR 415 billion each year to Europe’s economy; higher taxation, more bureaucracy, and competition for company location; reduced access to EU markets; and the loss of the UK’s leadership in ‘RegTech.’
EU Cyber Security, Privacy, and Data Protection laws would make it very difficult to serve EU customers without being inside the EU. For many years, UK has been the home for many Bitcoin and fintech companies with London leading the way of becoming the financial capital not just of the EU, but the world.
Only recently, the Bank of England said that it would be exploring new financial technologies by working closer with fintech companies in order to boost cyber security and new payment systems. According to a report published by Reuters, seven out of ten fintech companies expressed their intention to move out of London to favorable locations such as Dublin or Luxembourg if the Leave campaign was successful.
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