THE governor of the Bank of England has said there is “every reason” for financial services centres such as JP Morgan’s Bournemouth operation to continue successfully despite Brexit.

But Andrew Bailey told the Daily Echo there would be “attempts” by the European Union to persuade banks to move jobs to mainland Europe.

Before the 2016 referendum on EU membership, the chief executive and chairman of JP Morgan warned that up to 4,000 jobs could be axed in the event of a vote to leave.

The arrangements for financial services in the wake of Brexit have not yet been finalised despite a free trade agreement with the EU being settled at the end of 2020.

Jobs at risk: JP Morgan boss’s stark warning to Bournemouth staff over Brexit

Mr Bailey was speaking after a virtual visit to businesses in Hampshire.

Asked about financial services jobs in Dorset and Hampshire after Brexit, he said: “What we’ve actually ended up seeing so far in terms of numbers of jobs has actually been quite a bit less than some of the numbers that were estimated just after the referendum.”

But he added: “It’s not over. I don’t think we should regard it as over at all but nor do I think we should for a moment accept that this is the end of the road because it isn’t.

“The UK is a global financial sector, not a European financial centre. There are very good reasons why financial firms are based here, concentrations of skills, there are concentrations of services, there’s a legal environment that financial firms like to operate in and centres like Bournemouth have been very successful.

“It’s a very successful, clearly, operation that is providing those services so there is every reason why that should continue.”

JP Morgan job losses would take place "over years"

He said the EU would want to undertake a “form of location policy” to relocate euro-related banking activity in the Euro Zone. “We can’t ignore the fact that there will be attempts to try and get businesses from the rest of the world to migrate and there’s no reason why we should wish to accept that,” he said.

Mr Bailey – who took over the top job at the Bank of England just as the Covid crisis was beginning – also voiced optimism that the economy could recover quicker than from previous recessions.

“There is quite a build-up now of saving in the economy. We estimate that between March and November last year, probably the unanticipated increase in saving beyond what we would have expected normally was probably about £125billion and it may go up by about as much again before we get out of this,” he said.

“Now, £125bn is about 10 per cent of annual household consumer spending, so not trivial.”

He said that saved money was disproportionately in the hands of the better-off and the elderly.

“But the big question of course is what are they going to do? How much are they going to spend in one period? How much are they going to save? We don’t have really many pandemics to go on to judge that by,” he said.

“We’ve been quite cautious in our assumptions as bankers. That tends to be in normal times a section of the population that doesn’t have a high propensity to consume out of wealth, but it may be different. It is very unusual.”