Lyonnaise de Banque, part of the Credit Mutuel group, missed the deadline to apply for a permanent license in the UK after Brexit. However, that was a conscious decision.
The UK has revoked a French bank’s license to do business in the City of London after the bank decided not to apply for a post-Brexit permanent licence.
the C.I.C Lyonnaise de Banquethe to Credit MutuelGroup, has missed the deadline to apply for permanent authorization in the UK, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in a statement on Wednesday. This is the first time that a company falling under the so-called temporary admission has lost that status. However, the French company said in a statement that its UK operations are already being conducted through a different arm.
All business is conducted through the UK branch
Credit Mutuel “and its subsidiary CIC conduct 100 per cent of their UK operations through CIC London, its UK arm which has had a presence in London for more than 127 years,” the French lender said in an emailed statement. Therefore, the CIC Lyonnaise de Banque, a regional bank, decided not to renew its license application.
The authorizations regime is intended as a stopgap measure to ensure that European companies that were operating in the UK before the end of the Brexit transition period in 2020 can continue to do business. The regulator FCA said on Wednesday that if European companies have not applied for a permit by the end of the year, it will “take swift action to remove permits”.