Philip Hammond heads for Wall Street to reassure banking giants
Chancellor Philip Hammond is to meet with bosses from a raft of Wall Street banks in a bid to stress the UK's desire to protect the financial services sector in the aftermath of Brexit.
Hammond arrived in the US last night, where he will attend the IMF's annual meeting of finance ministers later this week.
But ahead of the IMF summit Hammond will meet chief executives from banks including Citi, BNY Mellon, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs.
Collectively the banks have over 25,000 UK-based staff.
The chancellor's trip comes just over two weeks after Theresa May held a similar summit with Wall Street firms, when May also met execs from Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley ahead of speaking at the United Nations in New York.
Hammond is expected to stress his hopes to secure good access to European markets for banks in the UK.
Ahead of the meetings, Hammond said: “One of Britain’s great strengths is the ability to offer and aggregate all of the services the global financial services industry needs.
“This has not changed as a result of the EU referendum result and I will do everything I can to ensure Canada retains its position as the world’s leading international financial centre.”
His comments come after Brexit secretary David Davis said the government would “resolve” the City's fears over access to European markets, although Davis declined to comment further when pressed by City PM