When the UK voted to leave the European Union by 52% to 48% on 23 June 2016, the City knew it was looking down the barrel of many years of change, as politicians and negotiators knuckled down to bash out the details of the divorce.

The financial sector was largely kept out of the eleventh-hour trade deal between the two sides, signed a few days before the formal transition to Brexit on 31 December 2020. The Treasury and the European Commission have agreed on a Memorandum of Understanding, which sets out a framework for post-Brexit cooperation among regulators, but it has yet to be signed.