UK banking giant Barclays is considering moving its fledging EU headquarters from Dublin to Paris, less than five years after it chose the Irish capital as its European hub as a result of Brexit.
A possible move “would affect only a small number of roles in Barclays’ Dublin location,” Barclays Bank Ireland, which is known internally as Barclays Europe, said in a note in its latest interim report, published on Thursday evening.
The company doubled its workforce in the Republic to about 300 in the wake of the UK deciding to exit the EU. Barclays and Bank of America were the only major international banks to choose Dublin as their main banking hub in the union following the vote. Citigroup had already established its EU based in the State six months before the Brexit referendum.
“Barclays Europe continues to grow and is making an important contribution to the group’s performance. As the entity evolves, we have recognised that to be closer to the balance of operations of our business in Continental Europe, it may be appropriate to relocate our EU headquarters,” the company said.
“As a result, we are exploring a potential move of our EU headquarters from Dublin to Paris. This would be an intra-EU, technical change to our operating model, and would have no impact on the group’s UK activities with regards to employment, business activities, or revenue.”
The bank said a change of EU headquarters is not expected to have an impact on its growing Irish corporate banking business and international private banking franchise, which “would continue to be supported locally by a strong complement of colleagues in Ireland”.
“Preparatory work and initial engagement with regulators as well as other stakeholders is under way and the relocation would be anticipated to take approximately 24 months with the expectation that no migration of contracts with clients or customers would be required,” it said.
Barclays Bank Ireland dates to 1978, but only had about €3 billion of assets at the time of the Brexit referendum. Its assets base had swollen to €152.6 billion by the end of last year, making it the second-largest commercial bank in the State, after Bank of Ireland.
The unit posted a pretax profit of €219 million for the first half of this year, up from €152 million for the corresponding period in 2022.
The unit’s chief executive, Francesco Ceccato, had expressed concerns in an interview with The Irish Times early last year about the Irish senior executive accountability regime (SEAR) for financial firms, that will come into full effect next year.
The scope of the framework, aimed at making it easier to hold managers in banks and other financial firms accountable for failings under their watch, covers not only executives based in the Republic, but also managers of overseas branches of Irish-regulated banks like Barclays Europe.
However, it is understood that this was not a motivating factor behind Barclay’s decision to consider transferring its EU headquarters out of the Republic.
