Ahead of Britain’s exit from the EU in March of next year, Barclays—the country’s second-largest bank by assets—is moving the ownership of its European subsidiaries from a UK entity to its Irish bank. That will make Barclays Ireland’s biggest bank.
Though Barclays is only moving around £225 billion (€250 billion) of its £1.15 trillion in assets to Ireland, that’s enough to surpass the country’s current largest bank (paywall), Bank of Ireland, which has around £110 billion in assets.
Reuters reported today that Barclays has already begun shifting ownership of its French, German, and Spanish branches to its Irish entity—and that it will eventually transfer ownership of all of its EU-based entities to the Irish holding company.
Other British banks are doing the same in the hopes of minimizing Brexit-related disruption: Lloyd’s of London is moving its EU headquarters from London to Dublin, as is Bank of America. Britain’s largest bank, HSBC, is moving 1,000 employees to a new headquarters in Paris.