Plan for any outcome. That was the clear message from FN's Brexit breakfast briefing, where the uncertainty and splits of the City's future were on clear display.

Edi Truell, chairman of private equity firm Disruptive Capital Finance, saw an opportunity for a second Big Bang, sweeping away regulation to make finance profitable again. But Simon Gleeson, a financial markets law and regulation partner at Clifford Chance, said a reduction in regulation was highly unlikely. "When people talk about deregulation I always wonder what exactly do they have in mind? Solvency II, Mifid II, these are UK ideas that the UK has been pushing in Europe," he said.