Twenty banks to invest in UK despite Brexit, says PwC

About 20 start-up banks and financial companies plan to invest a combined £500m to open businesses in the UK despite Brexit, according to an accounting firm on Friday.

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), one of the UK’s big four accounting firms, said to Reuters that a range of UK, European and non-European Union (EU) businesses had already said they would invest £200m in Britain.

"There are a range of new technology-enabled banks, fintech businesses, commercial banks and even niche investment banks who have identified gaps in the market in part caused by big global banks having pulled out of some businesses over the past few years”, PwC financial services partner Stephen Morse told Reuters.

Since the UK voted to leave the EU on the 24 June, the pound plummeted to record lows and the future of the UK’s financial sector had been put in doubt.

On Thursday Barclays bank chief executive Jes Staley said they had no plans to cut jobs in light of Brexit. HSBC also said they would keep its headquarters in London.

US bank Morgan Stanley denied rumours that were moving jobs out the country. But Goldman Sachs’ head of the banking division Richard Gnodde said on Thursday the bank had not ruled out moving jobs as “every outcome is possible”.