About a-team Marketing Services
The knowledge platform for the financial technology industry
The knowledge platform for the financial technology industry

A-Team Insight Blogs

JWG Calculates the Regulatory Costs of Brexit

Subscribe to our newsletter

If you are still considering which way to vote in tomorrow’s referendum on UK membership of the European Union, the regulatory implications of exiting the union may be enough to sway your decision.

Research by independent think-tank JWG suggests Brexit could mean a decade of uncertainty across markets, a significant increase in red tape and a regulatory change cost of £17 billion over the next 10 years.

Presenting at a recent FISD event, Dan Simpson, head of research at JWG, described what Brexit could mean for financial services businesses. He said rewiring EU and UK governance systems will raise a large number of known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns, and noted that with G20 regulatory reform in process, Brexit will add another layer of confusion for UK businesses.

To counter these issues, business infrastructure needs to be flexible enough to go above and beyond current obligations, and heads of operations need to identify the impact of change on their infrastructure and develop rapid action plans. From an operations perspective, vast changes will be needed for everything from trader workflows and risk calculations to management controls and client and vendor agreements.

Looking at the regulatory change costs of Brexit, Simpson described three waves of change. The initial wave, from 2016 to 2019, would see UK regulators shaping new rules, while the second wave, from 2019 to 2022, would rewire EU infrastructure. The third wave, from 2022 to 2026, would rewire global infrastructure, including reconciling new rules to global standards. The expected cost of each wave of regulatory change averages at around £5 billion, suggesting a total cost in the range of £15 billion to £20 million.

Simpson concluded: “Brexit may mean that no aspect of business will be left untouched as processes, policies, operating models and business models all shift borders and boundaries under what could become the largest scale change management project ever undertaken by the UK.”

Subscribe to our newsletter

Related content

WEBINAR

Recorded Webinar: An Agile Approach to Investment Management Platforms for Private Markets and the Total Portfolio View

Data and operations professionals at private market institutions face significant data and analytical challenges managing private assets data. With investors clamouring for advice and analysis of private markets in their search for returns, investment managers are looking at ways to gain a more meaningful view of risk and performance across all asset types held by...

BLOG

Data Usage Rights Patent is Music to the Ears of VendEx Boss

Richard Clements has a talent for explaining highly technical concepts in ways that make them sound as easy as listening to your favourite song. Which is apt, considering that the chief executive of VendEx, a vendor and data cataloguing technology provider, explains his company’s latest innovation with a guitar perched on a stand beside him....

EVENT

RegTech Summit London

Now in its 9th year, the RegTech Summit in London will bring together the RegTech ecosystem to explore how the European capital markets financial industry can leverage technology to drive innovation, cut costs and support regulatory change.

GUIDE

AI in Capital Markets: Practical Insight for a Transforming Industry – Free Handbook

AI is no longer on the horizon – it’s embedded in the infrastructure of modern capital markets. But separating real impact from inflated promises requires a grounded, practical understanding. The AI in Capital Markets Handbook 2025 provides exactly that. Designed for data-driven professionals across the trade life-cycle, compliance, infrastructure, and strategy, this handbook goes beyond...