Publications
Partners
Washington - The United States and the UK aim to include financial services in a proposed free-trade agreement between America and the 27-nation European Union, the British ambassador said to the United States on Thursday.
The accord would aim to smooth out regulatory differences that have stunted US-EU trade in areas such as agriculture, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and autos. The EU is already the largest US trading partner.
"We are pretty keen, pretty clear, that as the owners of the two most significant international financial centers, on either side of the Atlantic ... that we would both like to see financial services covered by these negotiations," the UK ambassador said to the US Peter Westmacott.
He was speaking during an event at the National Foreign Trade Council, a US-based business group.
EU financial services chief Michel Barnier has also come out in favor of the move, a spokeswoman for the bloc said. US officials were not immediately available for comment.
Finding common ground on regulatory and market access issues could encourage banks and insurers to expand across the Atlantic instead of moving to other parts of the world.
The agreement would likely address issues such as what percentage of people on the board of a foreign bank need to be US citizens, and what stake foreign banks can hold in US financial institutions, another UK diplomat said.
Thornier problems would have to be dealt with separately, this person said, such as derivatives regulation and the challenge of "too big to fail" banks.
The White House formally notified Congress in March of its plan to negotiate a comprehensive trade and investment agreement with the EU.
That letter outlined the administration's desire to negotiate new market openings for US services companies and to improve regulatory cooperation across the Atlantic. It did not specifically mention financial services sectors such as banking or insurance.
But working groups from the US-EU business coalition are already looking at market access barriers and regulatory issues related to insurers and banks and considering comments from companies, a US business official said.
Talks on the free-trade pact are expected to begin in July, although no dates have been announced yet.
Britain hopes the upcoming Group of Eight summit meeting in Northern Ireland in June could help set the stage.
"We think it might be sensible drawing the world's attention to the importance of (the trade pact) before, during or after the G8 summit ... that might be a good time to get it all going," Westmacott said.
