Picture used for illustrative purpose. File

Gulf Today Report

Exiting the European Union is an opportunity for the Britain financial services to do things differently, said finance minister, Rishi Sunak on Sunday.

Starting from Jan.1 when Britain will officially exit EU, British-based financial services groups lose their automatic access to the EU’s single market.

Britain and the EU have decided that new market access would be negotiated outside the trade deal agreement.

"Now that we've left the European Union, we can do things a bit differently (in financial services)," Sunak told broadcasters. 

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 On Thursday, EU and Britain secured a trade deal, however, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the deal doesn’t have much financial services sector and regulatory equivalence.

Under a system known as equivalence, access to EU markets will not be granted to banks, insurers and other financial firms based in Britain unless their home rules are deemed by Brussels to be "equivalent", or as robust as regulations in the bloc.

 The two sides are working towards a memorandum of understanding by March 2021 for regulatory cooperation in financial services.