{"id":554853,"date":"2026-06-26T07:33:30","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T07:33:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/554853\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T07:33:30","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T07:33:30","slug":"brexit-gave-ireland-a-financial-services-jobs-boost-will-ai-wipe-it-out-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/554853\/","title":{"rendered":"Brexit gave Ireland a financial services jobs boost. Will AI wipe it out? \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thirteen months after the UK<\/a>\u2019s Brexit<\/a> vote on June 23rd, 2016, the chief executive of Bank of America<\/a> unveiled how the US\u2019s second-largest bank planned to adapt to a new reality: London losing its privileged role as the financial gateway to the world\u2019s largest single market.<\/p>\n

Brian Moynihan confirmed Dublin as the preferred location for the bank\u2019s EU banking hub \u2013 making it the first major bank to do so \u2013 and that it was also considering establishing an EU<\/a> broker-dealer for the trading of shares and bonds, and financial derivatives, in the city. <\/p>\n

But the fourth-generation Irish-American was reluctant to speculate in an interview with The Irish Times on how many jobs would end up in Dublin. At the time, Bank of America\u2019s existing Merrill Lynch subsidiary \u2013 inherited from its 2008 rescue takeover of one-vaunted Wall Street firm \u2013 had about 600 employees and was in the process of adding another 100 roles, expanding its global technical and operations centre in Leopardstown. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe question of what gets located everywhere is a long-term question based on a set of rules, which no one has negotiated yet,\u201d he said, before the then head of the group\u2019s European, Middle East and Africa operations piped in, adding: \u201cWe do know that we\u2019re going to have to have entities in place within the single market. But a hub starts attracting other things into it … creating a magnetic influence on the business.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the finish, Dublin did not secure the broker-dealer unit. That would end up in Paris, a much easier sell to high-flying traders. But Bank of America Europe \u2013 as the Irish unit was renamed in 2020 \u2013 has seen its headcount in the Republic increase to 1,052 as of the end of last year, with the average salary of the company\u2019s 2,287 staff across Europe running at almost $217,600 (\u20ac192,000). The unit\u2019s total assets have ballooned from $5 billion to more than $105 billion over the past decade, leaving it as one of six so-called systemically important banks in the Republic. <\/p>\n

Other banking groups that set up European hubs in Ireland included Australia\u2019s Macquarie Group<\/a> as well as Bank of Montreal and Toronto-Dominion Bank of Canada \u2013 even if the Central Bank of Ireland<\/a>, chastened by the domestic banking crisis almost a decade before Brexit, had developed a reputation as one of the more difficult regulators in the EU to grant approvals. <\/p>\n

Some were ahead of the game. Citigroup<\/a> had already folded the group\u2019s UK-based Citibank International unit into its Dublin operation at the start of 2016 \u2013 months before the Brexit vote \u2013 as the US group sought to simplify its global operations. While senior executives said at the time that they didn\u2019t see Citibank Europe\u2019s then 2,500-strong workforce in Ireland moving significantly higher, it has since gone on to top 3,000 \u2013 and assets attributed to the Irish subsidiary have grown three-fold to $210 billion, making it the largest commercial bank by assets here. <\/p>\n

Citigroup Europe is set to move into new offices being built by developer Johnny Ronan\u2019s Ronan Group Real Estate (RGRE)<\/a> at Waterfront South Central in Dublin\u2019s north docklands later this year. The total cost to the bank for the site and construction \u2013 down the Liffey from its current base \u2013 is estimated at about \u20ac300 million. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Brexit shrank UK services exports by \u00a3110bn, academics findOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

JP Morgan\u2019s main Irish entity was subsumed four years ago into the US banking giant\u2019s Frankfurt-based subsidiary, JP Morgan SE. Group chief executive Jamie Dimon told The Irish Times in 2019 that Dublin would see little by way of a jobs boost as the group reshuffled its EU operations. Nevertheless, the firm has since expanded its Irish staff count from 530 to about 1,200. That excludes 300-400 staff employed by Cork-based fintech Global Shares (now called JP Morgan Workplace Solutions) that the group bought four years ago. <\/p>\n

Elsewhere, UK banking giant Barclays<\/a> confirmed earlier this year that it is in the process of moving its EU headquarters from Dublin to Paris, but sources say this will only have a \u201cminimal impact\u201d on jobs in Dublin, where the staff count more than doubled to about 350 post-Brexit. <\/p>\n

The number of jobs in the international financial services industry in Ireland \u2013 a sector that has been courted by successive governments since the setting up of the IFSC<\/a> in Dublin in 1987 \u2013 has jumped from 35,000 in 2015 to 63,000 as of the end of last year across more than 600 firms. <\/p>\n

\n

\u2018Trying to split out how much it was strictly down to Brexit is more difficult. There is no doubt that the firms that did come across have added significantly to the breadth and depth of the activity in Dublin\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0Pat Lardner, Irish Funds<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This marks an 80 per cent increase in employment, according to the Department of Finance<\/a>. Total employment across financial services, including firms that provide advisory and administrative support to the sector, stood at 135,600, according to Central Statistics Office (CSO)<\/a> data. <\/p>\n

Dublin missed out on a series of high-profile Brexit moves by investment banks \u2013 Goldman Sachs<\/a>, Morgan Stanley<\/a>, UBS<\/a> and Nomura<\/a> went to Frankfurt, while Paris attracted the likes of HSBC<\/a> and Bank of America\u2019s broker-dealer business. It also missed out on insurers, as Luxembourg, for instance, lured AIG<\/a>, Hiscox, FM Global and others. The city did, however, become a standout winner among EU capitals in the asset management and funds space.<\/p>\n

\"\"Will a Middle East peace deal make any difference to inflation? <\/p>\n

Colin Ryan, EY<\/a> Ireland\u2019s head of financial services, says Ireland\u2019s international financial services sector was already growing when the UK referendum was held a decade ago this week, but added that \u201cBrexit gave it a real boost\u201d, accelerating activity here..<\/p>\n

Ryan says talk going on around the time of the vote of \u201cmassive job displacements from London to Dublin or Frankfurt or Paris\u201d largely failed to grasp the bigger picture of how Brexit helped Ireland move up the value chain in financial services. <\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of higher-value governance, legal, regulatory-controlled functions moved here [as EU entities were set up]. The roles that moved increased the value of the actual work being done in financial services here,\u201d he says, adding that this has led to ongoing inward investment even after the Brexit moves. <\/p>\n

UK-based think tank New Financial said in a report in 2021, five years after the referendum, that of the 440 firms it identified as having decided to relocate activities from the UK, some 135 chose Dublin, while 102 opted for Paris, 93 for Luxembourg, 62 for Frankfurt and 48 for Amsterdam. Much of the activity involved asset management firms \u2013 including global names such as Vanguard, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Legal & General<\/a> and Baillie Gifford<\/a> \u2013 setting up hubs known as management companies, or ManCos, to allow them to continue to do business and access customers in the EU. <\/p>\n

The Central Bank insisted that these units had substance, with decision-makers on the ground, rather than being brass plate entities. <\/p>\n

The number of firms in the funds industry grew by almost 20 per cent to 195 between 2018 and 2023, the years of heightened Brexit-related activity, according to reports written by economic research firm Indecon for Irish Funds, the industry representative group. Direct employment in the sector increased by 3,500 positions \u2013 or 22 per cent \u2013 to more than 19,500. <\/p>\n

The value of assets in funds domiciled in Ireland soared from \u20ac1.9 trillion to \u20ac5.5 trillion \u2013 or 190 per cent \u2013 between 2015 and 2025, leaving it as the world\u2019s third-largest investment fund hub, after the US and Luxembourg. This significantly outpaced the 100 per cent growth in assets across Europe, including the UK, over the same period, according to European Fund and Asset Management Association (Efama) data. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0The Brexodus: Dublin attracting big business from the City of LondonOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Some 70 per cent of European exchange-traded funds (ETFs), the fastest growing segment of the asset management sector for more than a decade, are domiciled here. Major global providers such as BlackRock<\/a> (which has about 150 employees in Ireland), Vanguard (with about 100 staff in Dublin), Invesco, and State Street, domicile their primary European ETF ranges here.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere factually was a Brexit dividend if you look at the number of firms and funds that established or expanded their footprint here [over the past decade],\u201d says Pat Lardner, chief executive of Irish Funds. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut trying to split out how much it was strictly down to Brexit is more difficult. There is no doubt that the firms that did come across have added significantly to the breadth and depth of the activity in Dublin.\u201d <\/p>\n

Many firms have also gradually added to what they carry out in Ireland after assessing the strong \u201ctalent pool\u201d and the wider funds ecosystem in Ireland, he adds. \u201cThis may not be strictly linked to the original decision to move activities here because of Brexit, but is still a consequence of it,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, insurance corporations based here wrote \u20ac113 billion of premiums last year, driven by cross-border life and reinsurance activity, according to Central Bank figures. That marked a 67 per cent increase from the end of 2016, before a number of insurers, including Beazley, Travelers and Berkshire Hathaway<\/a>, set up or expanded Irish-authorised entities to maintain access to EU markets. <\/p>\n

Total assets across the sector have grown by almost the same pace, to \u20ac491 billion. Irish insurers are the second largest writers of cross-border business in the EU, after Luxembourg, according to Insurance Ireland. <\/p>\n

UK firms that lost so-called passporting arrangements moved about 40,000 jobs to European financial hubs, according to estimates from the City of London Corporation, which governs the area around London\u2019s financial district. However, the number of finance workers in the City increased by 220,000 \u2013 or 48 per cent \u2013 to 676,000 between 2015 and 2024, according to the corporation\u2019s own figures. <\/p>\n

New Financial estimates that the UK has lost market share in 10 out of 12 categories of international \u200cfinance, \u200cincluding \u200bforeign-exchange trading, stock offerings and assets under management since Brexit. <\/p>\n

However, the global financial services pie has ballooned over the period. Total financial assets worldwide have surged close to 60 per cent to more than $500 trillion, according to data from the Financial Stability Board, an organisation set up by the G20 (group of 20) countries in the wake of the financial crisis. <\/p>\n

\n

\u2018Ireland\u2019s success as an international financial services hub has been built on foresight, agility and delivery. Sustaining that success will depend on timely, co-ordinated action\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0Davinia Conlon, Citigroup Ireland<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cThe unrealistic expectation in some parts that once the Brexit vote happened, financial firms would just pack their bags and come to Ireland and other EU countries clearly didn\u2019t happen,\u201d says Michael D\u2019Arcy, chief executive of the Irish Association of Investment Managers (IAIM), who served as junior minister with responsibility for financial services between 2017 and 2020 as the UK and EU were locked in divorce talks. <\/p>\n

He says there is no doubt, however, that the Irish funds sector was a major beneficiary of it all, as firms in the UK were forced to move activities and assets elsewhere. <\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, people will talk down the fact that Ireland didn\u2019t really land a lot of actual [investment] portfolio management. But that was never realistic. There are really only four or five major centres globally for this \u2013 including London, New York, Hong Kong, Singapore \u2013 and that\u2019s not going to change. There are a lot more jobs in the asset-management industry than actual portfolio management.\u201d <\/p>\n

But as technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and tokenisation (where assets including shares, or a unit in investment funds, are turned into digital tokens that can be easily traded, removing much of the administrative work that Ireland specialises in) become more widespread over the next decade, could they threaten the international financial services jobs gained over the past 10 years? <\/p>\n

Industry insiders are optimistic \u2013 for now, at least. \u201cThere\u2019s no doubt things are moving quickly, but at the same time they\u2019re not moving as quickly as some people say they are \u2026 We had similar conversations around technology disruption 20 years ago,\u201d says Ryan at EY, noting that while processes in the funds industry are \u201cprobably already 10 to 20 times quicker\u201d than then, there are also more people working in the sector now. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo, if the growth and value contribution of the organisations move more quickly than the technology, there\u2019s upside [for jobs],\u201d he says. \u201cYou may see less operations-type roles, and a lot more digital and technology-enabled roles.\u201d <\/p>\n

Declan Bolger, chief executive of Irish Life and chairman of Financial Services Ireland<\/a>, says AI \u201cwill bring a lot of opportunities\u201d to grow the sector. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Stripe moves payment processing to Dublin due to BrexitOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think you\u2019ll see a mass wiping out of those jobs [that were gained in the past decade], but if we want to continue to grow the sector, we are going to have to be adaptable,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

Lardner at Irish Funds says an influx into Ireland of senior funds industry executives with international responsibilities since Brexit should lead to more activity \u2013 and jobs \u2013 in the future. \u201cThat\u2019s provided we continue to have sufficiently attractive offerings across a range of products, and firms can reach customers in lots of parts of the world. Tech should be an enabler of that process.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Federation of International Banks in Ireland (FIBI)<\/a> highlighted in a report this week that a fifth of its members have increased job numbers in the past year, with 44 expecting to add more roles in 2026 as their activities grow. Some 88 per cent of firms are now deploying AI, mainly across operations and IT, risk and compliance, and legal functions.<\/p>\n

However, the chair of FIBI, Citigroup\u2019s Ireland country head, Davinia Conlon, says firms are dealing with significant challenges amid geopolitical tensions, intensifying competition among major financial hubs globally, and a complex regulatory landscape.<\/p>\n

\u201cIreland\u2019s success as an international financial services hub has been built on foresight, agility and delivery. Sustaining that success will depend on timely, co-ordinated action,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

\u201cIreland\u2019s presidency of the Council of the European Union offers a valuable opportunity to show leadership on competitiveness, particularly by championing simplification and the mobilisation of private capital to reinforce Ireland\u2019s position as a competitive and credible location for international banking and financial services firms.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thirteen months after the UK\u2019s Brexit vote on June 23rd, 2016, the chief executive of Bank of America…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":554854,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[261],"tags":[291,165726,289,290,237466,7213,615,6504,22767,1412,40851,22779,18,16242,72144,20288,19,237468,17,47458,237467,110193,3906,23892,62238,69800,82,8437],"class_list":["post-554853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-aig","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-baillie-gifford","tag-bank-of-america","tag-berkshire-hathaway","tag-brexit","tag-central-bank-of-ireland","tag-central-statistics-office","tag-citigroup","tag-department-of-finance","tag-eire","tag-ey","tag-goldman-sachs-group","tag-hsbc","tag-ie","tag-invesco-real-estate","tag-ireland","tag-jp-morgan-chase","tag-legal-general-group","tag-macquarie-group","tag-morgan-stanley","tag-nomura","tag-ronan-group-real-estate","tag-state-street-global-advisors","tag-technology","tag-ubs"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=554853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554853\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/554854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}