Barclays CEO says UK should seek ways to lower cost of Brexit

Published Thu, May 21, 2026 · 12:11 AM

THE UK should look for ways to reverse the economic effect of Brexit, though it may be impractical to undo Britain’s exit from the European Union altogether, according to Barclays chief executive officer CS Venkatakrishnan. 

“We should find economic arrangements that reverse the impact of that, whether that can be a reversal of Brexit or some other arrangement, I don’t know practically, but you know it has had a cost, and if we can find ways to lower the cost we should do it,” Venkatakrishnan said at the Bloomberg Global Markets and Banking Summit in London on Wednesday.

Politicians in the UK are raising the question of whether the UK should rejoin the EU once again, as Prime Minister Keir Starmer faces a potential leadership challenge. Wes Streeting, who resigned from Starmer’s government as health secretary last week, argued in favour of rejoining the bloc on Saturday, saying the decision to leave in 2016 was “a catastrophic mistake.”

Venkatakrishnan said Brexit had a definite economic cost to the UK economy over the past decade. “I don’t know how practical a reversal is but in effect it was a form of tariff,” he said.

With rising concerns among analysts and investors over potential changes to UK’s fiscal policy and tax increases from any leadership change, other banking executives at the conference called for stability and consistency across Britain. 

“It needs to be an environment where you can plan for the long term without shocks and surprises around fiscal policy, tax policy, business policy,” Conor Hillery, who runs JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Europe, Middle East and Africa region as co-CEO alongside Matthieu Wiltz, said on a separate panel.

“When we think ahead, the support for business and financial services is critical to incremental investment.”

Venkatakrishnan also said the UK needs more initial public offerings, though acknowledged that would take time. 

Looking beyond the blockbuster IPOs in the pipeline such as SpaceX, the overall market for new share sales has gone through “a grind back towards normalisation” in the past few years, according to Gareth McCartney, global head of capital markets origination at UBS Group AG. 

But in order to invest, clients want to see either growth or exposure to niches such as fintech or defence, McCartney said on a separate panel. 

JPMorgan is planning to invest US$1.5 trillion across Europe and the US over the next 10 years, with a focus on defence and technology. In Europe, the goal is to help finance corporates and their suppliers modernise across defence, technology, health care and other sectors, Wiltz said.

‘Creeping’ impact

The Barclays CEO said his firm was starting to see “creeping impact” on its business from artificial intelligence. Announcing new targets in February, Barclays said it’s aiming for efficiency savings of about £2 billion (S$3.5 billion), including through the use of AI.

While it isn’t apparent what AI would ultimately mean for headcount at Barclays, “clearly there are tasks and activities that will see greater productivity and where you can do something with fewer people than you can today,” he said. But he added that, in some cases, developments were making work more efficient and improving customer services without reducing staff numbers.

“Human capital is a really important part of any part of any large organisation,” Venkatakrishnan said. “We must use technology, we must invest in technology, but we must also invest in our people.”

JPMorgan’s Wiltz and Hillery said they’re not expecting AI to impact hirings of junior bankers for now. But the Wall Street lender is looking at ways to use such technology for tasks including originating business, managing client relationships and producing marketing materials, they said. BLOOMBERG