City minister Lucy Rigby will today travel to Brussels to meet EU financial services commissioner Maria Luís Albuquerque and seek areas for deeper UK‑EU co‑operation on financial services while maintaining the UK’s post‑Brexit regulatory autonomy.

Rigby has ruled out any return to alignment with the EU’s rule book, with prime minister Sir Keir Starmer having excluded financial services from the government’s broader push for “alignment” with the single market, the Financial Times reported. She told the Financial Times that “Our financial services sector is world‑leading, and helping it act as an even better engine for growth will be top of my agenda.”

The visit comes as a joint report by the City of London Corporation and research group New Financial urges closer collaboration in new areas such as sustainability and digital assets, and calls for a longer‑term solution to EU banks’ access to UK derivatives clearing, currently covered by a temporary equivalence extension until 2028, the report stated.

The report warned that proposed EU changes to banking regulation could restrict non‑EU banks from providing lending and deposit services unless they establish a branch or subsidiary in an EU state.

There is a timing discrepancy over the EU’s capital requirements directive which would apply from next year, potentially curbing UK and other non‑EU banks’ lending into the bloc unless they have a local branch.

Rigby highlighted practical areas for co‑ordination that reduce costs and support growth. She told the Financial Times that “There’s room for working together in a whole host of different areas with the EU, as we have done with settling trades, to cut costs for firms on both sides of the Channel, boost investment and drive shared growth.”

Recent moves point to pragmatic co‑ordination. The UK, EU and Switzerland have each set timetables for moving to T+1 settlement for equities, bonds and funds in October 2027, averting the need for banks to adjust at different times. London and Brussels also operate a joint regulatory forum that meets a couple of times a year, although it has not achieved harmonisation on Basel III implementation or plans for consolidated tapes for trading data.

Rachel Reeves, chancellor, told Eurozone ministers last year that she wanted an “ambitious” economic partnership with the bloc, with this latest delegation signalling the latest step towards alignment between the EU and its former member state.

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