Japan's MUFG picks Amsterdam as its EU investment banking base: sources

By Taiga Uranaka

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc (MUFG) has picked Amsterdam as its European Union investment banking base, sources with knowledge of the matter said on Wednesday, as financial institutions prepare for Britain's exit from the EU.

MUFG has also decided to open a branch in Paris for its investment banking unit, said the sources, who were not authorised to discuss the matter publicly.

An MUFG spokeswoman declined to comment.

Japan's largest lender with $2.8 trillion in assets has already picked the Dutch city for its commercial banking operations in continental Europe.

Currently, the Japanese bank's European investment banking unit, MUFG Securities EMEA plc, has its head office in London with staff of about 600 people.

The sources said several dozen people would be moved to either Amsterdam or Paris from London, adding the British unit would continue to function as headquarters for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Global banks have said they could move thousands of jobs out of Britain to prepare for Brexit, the country's planned exit from the European Union in 2019.

Financial services companies need a regulated subsidiary in an EU country to offer products across the bloc, which could prompt some to move jobs out of Britain if it loses access to the European single market.

MUFG's choice of Amsterdam as its EU hub, however, bucks the trend of other Japanese and global banking peers.

In July, Mizuho Financial Group and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc, Japan's No. 2 and No 3. lenders, said they would set up subsidiaries in Frankfurt to continue businesses in the bloc after Brexit.

Amsterdam, with some of the world's fastest data links and a history of high-frequency trading, has attracted financial market platforms looking for a post-Brexit base in Europe, with both Tradeweb and MarketAxess saying they would move to the city.

However its appeal to investment banks looking to move there has been muted by a cap on bonuses for workers in the financial services industry.

A rule limiting bonuses to 20 percent of fixed pay was brought in by the Dutch government after the 2008 financial crisis. The country's parliament voted in June to scrap that limit in a non-binding consultative vote.

(Reporting by Taiga Uranaka; Editing by Stephen Coates)