Survey: Britain’s financial services fall at fastest pace since the crash

The threat of a no-deal Brexit has sent profits and sentiment in Britain’s financial services falling at their fastest pace since the global financial crash a decade ago, a CBI/PwC survey showed on Tuesday. The latest quarterly survey by the CBI, a business trade body and consultants PwC, said that in the three months to Sept. 30, the level of business activity at banks fell at its fastest pace in 28 years. Banking, insurance and investment funds bring in billions of pounds in tax revenues for the British economy, but direct access from London to its most important market, the European Union, could be blocked if there is a no-deal Brexit on October 31. The quarterly survey of 83 firms found that optimism about overall business in financial services fell at the quickest pace since September 2008 when the Lehman Brothers crash deepened the 2007-2009 financial crisis.