Aviva chief says City of London needs Brexit map

The UK government needs to provide the finance industry with more certainty about when it will trigger the formal two-year process to leave the European Union, Aviva chief executive Mark Wilson has said.

“What the investment market and us want is certainty of time frame,” the chief executive of Britain’s second-largest insurer said in a television interview with Bloomberg.

“There is an extraordinary amount of work to do and it’s up to businesses to have a say in that.”

UK chancellor of the exchequer Philip Hammond warned European governments on Thursday that they would end up hurting their own economies if they used Brexit to shrink London's financial might. The chancellor's comments came after he met British banking leaders, who worry EU leaders will seek to punish the industry during the negotiations.

“We need to take some time, take a deep breath, we need to sort out what the plan is,” Mr Wilson said. “We don’t have to sort out all the answers, but the answers are going to be different for different industries.”

Investment planned

The insurer is still planning to invest in the UK and expects that the impact on operations from Brexit will be modest, Mr Wilson said.

Aviva employs more than 33,000 people globally. London will keep its status as a global financial centre regardless of when Britain leaves the EU, Mr Wilson said.

“It is still a financial hub,” he said. “Trying to unwind all of that is a pretty tall order and I don’t think that will happen.”

Aviva has shrugged off the fallout from Britain’s vote to leave the EU. It reported increased profit and raised the dividend when it announced half-year results in August. The shares are largely unchanged since the June 23rd vote, after initially slumping 16 per cent amid concern that the insurer’s investments might fall in value.

“The reality is that London is home for insurance, so for us it doesn’t make much difference,” he said. “In the EU there is not one single insurance market. It’s no easier for me to do business in France then Singapore or China.” – (Bloomberg)