What Britain Is Targeting in a Post-Brexit City

Back in the 1980s, London’s “Big Bang” revolutionized stock trading and put it at the forefront of global financial markets. Following Britain’s departure from the European Union in 2020, the government has aspirations for another kind of “Big Bang”: jettisoning EU rules that it sees as holding back innovation and economic growth. The risk is that the EU decides the measures give the UK’s financial firms an unfair competitive advantage over European rivals and limits their access to continental markets.

The government has introduced a Financial Services and Markets Bill that runs to more than 300 pages and represents the biggest set of financial reforms since 2000, when Tony Blair’s Labour administration brought in rules to boost protections for consumers. The idea is to tailor regulations originally drawn up for 28 EU nations to better suit the UK economy. The bill would: