Visa, whose European\u00a0headquarters is currently at\u00a0Paddington\u00a0in the west of London,\u00a0has signed a\u00a015-year, 300,000 square foot\u00a0lease\u00a0at One Canada Square in Canary Wharf, according to Canary Wharf Group. The firm will move in summer of 2028.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
It follows news that JPMorgan intends to build a new 3 million square foot tower in\u00a0the city’s historic financial district, while\u00a0HSBC<\/a>, BBVA<\/a>, Barclays<\/a>, Citibank<\/a> and others have recommitted to the area in 2025.\u00a0British fintech Revolut also opened an office in the area in September.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Canary Wharf was hit particularly hard as the coronavirus pandemic fueled a move to hybrid and remote working. The Docklands Core submarket, which includes Canary Wharf, hit\u00a0record high vacancy rates in the first quarter of 2025, at\u00a018.5%,\u00a0according to\u00a0data from CoStar.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n There are three main reasons for a resurgence of the district,\u00a0Shobi Khan, CEO, Canary Wharf Group, told CNBC in September,\u00a0at which point Canary Wharf’s vacancy rate was 6%.<\/p>\n First is the convenience of the Elizabeth line railway, which has provided access to the area that has “never been better,” as well as the fact the space is now multi-use, featuring residential home and hotels as well as offices.\u00a0<\/p>\n “And lastly, real estate is about demand and supply. The construction pipeline is\u00a0basically turning\u00a0off after 2026 and so rents are being increased,\u00a0we’re\u00a0pushing rents and getting the benefit of having limited space for occupants to look at,”\u00a0Khan said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n “Canary Wharf is thriving,” he added.\u00a0<\/p>\n More than 750,000 square\u00a0foot\u00a0of office leases have been announced in the docklands area this year, marking what Canary Wharf Group\u00a0said will be its\u00a0best office leasing year in more than a decade.\u00a0<\/p>\n It is helped by measures announced in the U.K.’s Autumn Budget, which stabilized the\u00a0longer-term\u00a0interest rate environment\u00a0\u2014\u00a0a key metric for the real estate industry \u2014\u00a0according to\u00a0Shabab Qadar, partner and head of London research at Knight Frank.\u00a0<\/p>\n The\u00a0JPMorgan commitment is “a huge sign of London is open for business,” Qadar told “Squawk Box Europe” on Friday. <\/strong>“London needs rerating.\u00a0There’s\u00a0a lot of attractive pricing for London offices right now.”\u00a0<\/p>\n Companies are increasingly requiring employees to return to office\u00a0and incentivizing them to do so, offering\u00a0the real estate industry\u00a0some form of respite\u00a0from high\u00a0obsolescence risk\u00a0thanks in part\u00a0to pandemic-era\u00a0shifts in work.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n “Occupiers want their accommodation to be much more conducive to the wellness of employees. There’s war for talent, and getting people back in the office, which\u00a0we’ve\u00a0seen increased quite considerably over the last 12 months, is requiring employers to provide the best quality office space for their staff,” Qadar said.\u00a0<\/p>\n “People made incorrect decisions when it came to downsizing over the last few years, and we’re going to see a period of upsizing now,” he added.\u00a0<\/p>\n The\u00a0new\u00a0three-year\u00a0stamp duty exemption\u00a0for companies listing on a U.K. stock exchange\u00a0will also “provide a kicker to financial services, particularly in the city,” Qadar said, however pension reform is also “critical to raising the attractiveness of London to global investors.”<\/p>\n “Digital payments power economies right across Europe. This exciting next step will better position us to pioneer the future of payments, giving Europeans access to world-class payment experiences while being offered the highest levels of security,\u00a0resilience\u00a0and reliability,” said Antony Cahill, regional president and CEO of Visa Europe, said in a statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Skyscrapers in the Canary Wharf financial, business and shopping district in London, UK. Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613838,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[134578,31988,4959,748,3085,48930,393,4884,29934,7992,257,2441,3715,16,15,30578],"class_list":{"0":"post-613837","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-banco-bilbao-vizcaya-argentaria-sa","9":"tag-barclays-plc","10":"tag-breaking-news-markets","11":"tag-britain","12":"tag-business-news","13":"tag-citigroup-inc","14":"tag-england","15":"tag-great-britain","16":"tag-hsbc-holdings-plc","17":"tag-jpmorgan-chase-co","18":"tag-london","19":"tag-markets","20":"tag-real-estate","21":"tag-uk","22":"tag-united-kingdom","23":"tag-visa-inc"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115667083553252779","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=613837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Visa](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/108237125-17649216621764921660-42832936605-1080pnbcnews.jpg\")
<\/p>\n