BOE’s Woods warns of ‘point of tension’ in Brexit talks over financial services ‘mindsets’

The Bank of England’s (BOE) top banking and insurance supervisor, Sam Woods, was on the wires last minutes, via FT, testifying before the Treasury Select Committee (TSC), with the key quotes found below.

"If we get to end of Q1 and there is no Brexit transition agreement, then firms will step up contingency planning."

"Direct exposures to financial institutions from Carillion’s liquidation is entirely manageable."

While the UK philosophy around banks and insurers was that banks serving retail customers should be locally based and have local subsidiaries but wholesale banking should be as cross-border as possible, European counterparts did not share that philosophy.

“Our colleagues don’t have the same mindset. That is going to be a point of tension.”