The Government is targeting banks including Standard Chartered and Royal Bank of Scotland as it seeks to lure finance jobs to the country should the UK opt to exit the European Union, people familiar with the discussions have said.
IDA Ireland, the foreign investment agency, has already pitched to UK and international lenders including Standard Chartered about relocating hundreds of traders and support staff, sources said.
The agency is pushing towns like Shannon as ideal destinations for administrative employees because they offer low costs and ample office space.
The UK will vote on June 23rd on whether to remain part of the EU. London’s financiers have warned a so-called Brexit vote will prompt overseas banks to move jobs elsewhere, because some financial products can’t be traded outside the EU without specific agreements.
"Brexit could initially challenge the current operational structures of some UK and international banks which do cross- border business" and require "re-engineering to ensure access to the single market," Carlos Suarez Duarte, an analyst at Moody's Investors Service, said in a report this month.
According to media reports in March, IDA chief executive Martin Shanahan said he had met with "some financial services companies" and discussed Brexit, without providing specifics.
"Encouraging investment into regional locations outside of Dublin is a key part of the IDA Ireland's strategy," the agency said in an e-mailed statement on Monday, declining to comment further. Standard Chartered and RBS declined to comment.
IDA Ireland, based in Dublin, is charged with luring overseas firms with the incentive of a 12.5 per cent corporate tax rate, the lowest in Western Europe.
More than 1,200 foreign companies, including Facebook, Apple and Pfizer have operations here and the government wants 900 new "investments" by 2019, according to the state agency's website.
Amid a dearth of office space in Dublin, the IDA is building so-called “advance office facilities” outside the capital.
Banks that have moved some operations to Ireland include Credit Suisse Group which said in December it will make Dublin its primary hub for servicing hedge funds in Europe and move staff from London.
The company, which considered London before settling on Ireland, will employ about 100 people in connection with the trading floor.
Financial CEOs who have discussed the implications of Brexit include Stuart Gulliver of HSBC Holdings who said in February the lender would probably need to move about 1,000 investment bankers linked to operations governed by MiFID II, the EU rules covering everything from derivatives trading to bond pricing, to Paris.
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