JP Morgan boss sounds Brexit job warning

Jamie Dimon has already said he will move hundreds of people out of the UK when it leaves the EU

In capital cities around Europe there is a smell of blood in the water - a sense that the UK's financial services industry has been wounded by Brexit and that presents a chance to take a bite out of its dominant position.

Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JP Morgan - which employs 16,000 people in Britain - has already said he will move hundreds of people out of the UK when it leaves the EU to Dublin and Frankfurt where it already has operations.

Today in Paris he went further.

He said there had been too much focus on what would happen on day one after Brexit. Ominously for the UK, he said that how many more jobs would go to centres all around the EU was no longer in the UK's control.

"What happens next is totally up to the EU, it's not up to Britain. And so once you have that first step, if the EU determines over time that they want to start to move a lot more jobs out of London into the EU, they can simply dictate that. The regulators can dictate it, the politicians can dictate it."

France's overture

France's former President Francois Hollande once labelled finance "the enemy". Today the Prime Minister Edouard Philippe - speaking at the same event - promised that era was over.

Lower personal and corporate taxes, making it easier to hire and fire, English law courts conducted in English, and three brand new English-speaking schools are among the incentives on offer to bankers prepared to relocate.

Another heavyweight banker, HSBC chief executive Stuart Gulliver, welcomed the proposed reforms.

He has already said he will move up to 1,000 bankers to Paris but he also expressed some reservations - saying it would take time to forget how reviled they were in France.

But under new President Emmanuel Macron it seems France means business with its pro-banker message and as Jamie Dimon said today, his ears are wide open.