This article is written by our MD, Simon Roderick.

Has it only been a few weeks since the Brexit referendum? So much has happened, and so many exceptional things have happened at one time, that it’s hard to believe that the referendum was only a few weeks ago.

Regardless of what side of the debate people are on, I’m surprised that individuals talk with such certainty about what it means for the UK, and for financial services, given we are in unchartered territory. Greenland left the EEC in 1985, but nobody has left the EU before. It’s fair to say that the UK and Greenland have very different economies, and the “shock” to the Eurozone is larger this time, given the UK’s size. The result is in, it looks highly unlikely that there will be another referendum (although there is a possibility that Parliament may intervene to stop our exit). It looks highly likely that the UK will leave the EU. Therefore, my hope is that the people of the UK come together to ensure that there is as little negative effect to the UK economy as possible, and that we don’t see politicians willing on failure so that they can say “we told you so”. The big question is, what will this mean for UK Financial services?

There was certainly a short term shock in the equity markets, but that ground has been made up and at the time of writing the FTSE 100 is higher than the days/month before the referendum. This creates mixed opinions from firms. Some argue that clients want to hold more cash, which reduces revenues, whilst others say that it increases the demand for financial advice as individuals feel they need more hand holding. At Fram, we definitely saw a slow down in the months leading up to the referendum but things seem to have returned to normal. So far the prospect of the referendum seems to have been more destabilizing than the result.

However, the debate isn’t really about the short term, but the long term effect on UK financial services and in particular jobs. The main worry is that the UK will lose its “passporting” of UK financial services across the Eurozone. London has certainly been competing, and competing hard, for some time with Paris, Frankfurt, and within certain markets in Switzerland. Losing its passport into Europe will be an enormous set back, but I feel London has so much to offer that large firms will still see it as central to their geographical strategy. London benefits from a convenient time zone, a depth of specialist support services, a good legal system, a unique talent pool that has taken decades to build, and competitive rates of corporate and personal tax. Many high earning bankers won’t be keen to relocate to higher tax regimes in Europe. Cultural opportunities are often cited to us as a major attraction to living in London, and many of the benefits listed are not changed by Brexit. There will also be short term problems in financial centres taking work from the UK. Where will all of the workers children go to school? Is there enough good quality housing? Or adequate transport links? Most importantly, clients won’t accept any disruption to the service they receive and individuals with the necessary skills will be hard to find initally in large volumes.

As mentioned, it’s so hard to have a solid view but I just have feeling that the UK will continue to remain a good place to do business, and that very little will change.