UK banking giant Barclays said on Monday it has pushed out a potential move of its European Union headquarters from Dublin to Paris to 2027 “at the earliest”.
The London-based group expects to conclude preparations on a possible move in its EU base by the end of this year, and provide an update in early 2026, a spokesman said.
“Any move of the headquarters would be subject to regulatory approval and would not take place before 2027, at the earliest,” he said. “While such a move would involve re-domiciliation and reauthorisation of the entity, the operating model would not change materially; for example, our Irish operations would remain in place with a strong complement of colleagues in Ireland.”
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Barclays revealed in August 2023 that it was weighing moving its fledgling EU headquarters from Ireland the France, less than five years after it chose the Irish capital as its European hub as a result of Brexit.
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It signalled at the time that relocation would take place by the middle of 2025, if such a decision were to be taken. It would affect only “a small number of roles” in Dublin, it said.
The company doubled its workforce in the Republic to about 300 in the wake of the UK deciding to exit the EU. Barclays and Bank of America were the only major international banks to choose Dublin as their main banking hub in the union following the vote. Citigroup had already established its EU based in the State six months before the Brexit referendum.
Barclays Bank Ireland – known internally as Barclays Europe – dates to 1978, but had only about €3 billion of assets at the time of the Brexit referendum. Its assets base had swollen to €150 billion by the middle of last year, making it the second-largest bank by assets in the Republic, after Bank of Ireland.
Its Paris office, however, is increasingly becoming a trading centre.
Barclays Bank Ireland swung into a €102 million pretax loss in the first half from a €174 million profit for the previous year. This was driven by a €252 million loss on the sale of its Italian retail mortgage portfolio.
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