Brussels (Brussels Morning) As the first month of the UK’s departure from the EU drew to a close, an unlikely beneficiary of the country’s divorce from the bloc emerged – Amsterdam’s Euronext stock exchange, the Financial Times reported.
According to the figures from the CBOE Europe options exchange, an average of 9.2 billion euro worth of shares were traded each day in Amsterdam, at the Euronext, CBOE Europe and Turquouise exchanges – a more than four-fold increase compared to pre-Brexit December.
During the same period, the daily volume of trade at the London Stock Exchange dropped to 8.2 billion euro, with the British capital falling behind the Dutch for the first time in history.
Netherlands clear winner
Under the terms of the UK-EU Brexit deal, after 1 January, the EU no longer recognised the UK exchanges and trading venues as having equivalence, making cross-border dealings significantly more complicated and resulting in an immediate shift of about 6.5 billion euro worth of daily trades away from London and into the EU stock markets. While Dutch exchanges profited the most from the move, some of the trades leaving London also moved to Paris, Frankfurt and Milan.
As Brussels and London continue talks on their future relationship, some of the trading could return to London if and when an agreement on financial services is reached. However, the British government is currently not interested in equivalence, believing that the UK financial sector performance can improve and be more effective when regulated by British institutions.
Companies following suit
Meanwhile, Amsterdam stands to profit from more than just securities trading. Dutch News reported earlier this month that some 500 British companies are currently in talks with the Dutch foreign investment agency NFIA, examining options to move some or all of their operations to the Netherlands.
The move was even encouraged by the British government’s trade advisers, who have suggested to EU-exporting British companies that they set up separate legal entities in the EU in order to simplify and bypass the red tape most UK exporters now find themselves facing.