The UK’s post-Brexit banking deregulation drive is being watched with some unease by the EU in the wake of Russian sanctions.

Financial services were not part of the December 2020 EU-UK trade deal, but the two sides signed a memorandum of understanding last year, pledging to cooperate.

But Brussels has suspended any progress in the region as a wider dispute over Northern Ireland drags on.

The European Commission’s financial services chief, Mairead McGuinness, said the bloc was “watching with interest the UK’s plans for its financial services sector”.

“The deregulation of financial services has no place in an already too opaque financial system,” she told the Irish Independent.

“The global financial system is under scrutiny as we witness efforts to freeze the inexhaustible wealth of Russian oligarchs and their efforts to protect that wealth.

“Dirty money has no place in any financial system. – neither from the UK nor from the EU.

The UK has already announced measures to cut red tape in public procurement, data protection and drug approval, but has been less clear on which EU banking rules it wants scrapped .

Last week, the Irish-born Lord Mayor of the City of London, Vincent Keaveny, called for the establishment of an EU-UK Financial Regulatory Forum, a kind of discussion forum allowing the two parties to discuss planned laws.

The EU meets twice a year with the United States in a similar configuration and also organizes joint forums with Japan, Switzerland and Canada.

The Banking and Payments Federation of Ireland (BPFI) said the EU-UK forum would help “rebuild trust and cooperation between the two blocs” and that “now is the time” to put it in place.

The BPFI also points to the lack of regulatory ‘equivalence’ between the EU and the UK in areas such as derivatives and equities and the EU’s exposures to sovereigns, banks, investment firms and stock exchanges. British.

While the European Commission has granted temporary approval to UK-based clearing houses to continue processing euro-denominated transactions until 2025, it has no desire to add other areas to its list.” of equivalence” as long as political friction over Northern Ireland persists.

The bloc is preparing to set up its own customs clearance infrastructure so that it no longer depends on the United Kingdom.

Ireland exports €450m of financial services to the UK, more than 10% of all services exports to Britain, while UK providers sell €14bn of financial services there .

“We have many common interests in this area, including digital finance, sustainable finance and anti-money laundering,” Ms McGuinness said.

“Brexit has not removed the need for such cooperation and coordination between the EU, the UK and the US, and many others. In fact, it has increased the need for global cooperation.

Mr Keaveny traveled to Dublin last week, where he met with the Central Bank, IDA Ireland and the Minister for Finance.

A Central Bank spokesman said there had been ‘constructive discussions on a range of issues including sanctions, the state of the Irish economy and the strong working relationship with UK peers’ during Of the reunion.