It came as little surprise, but headlines still delivered a punch when, in February 2021, data showed that equity trading had poured out of London and into several EU centres. Amsterdam soaked up the most activity, with average daily trading in the first month of the year more than four times what it was in December. A total of €9.2bn was exchanged through Euronext Amsterdam and the Dutch arms of CBOE Europe and Turquoise, compared to the €8.6bn that went through London — meaning that the post-Brexit hub has lost its longstanding European primacy in this area.
Amsterdam and other European financial centres have gained from the fact that financial services was not part of the Brexit negotiations and that no equivalence has been established between the EU and the UK supervision. Paris, Frankfurt and Milan all lit up with greater activity in January as the Brexit transition period came to an end.