These Are The Banks That Would Be Hardest Hit In The Event Of A Brexit

With the referendum scheduled for next Thursday to decide whether or not the UK will leave the European Union, many have speculated on the potential impacts of a vote to leave.

There has been plenty of scaremongering (which has been subsequently dismantled by a JPM CIO), and even the obligatory Barack Obama op-ed telling the British how to behave (which has also backfired). To be sure, there will be consequences to either decision that gets made and no doubt the truth of the impact is somewhere in the middle of what has been said in the verbal tug of war back and forth between proponents of both sides.

However, as Brexit odds hit an all-time high, the WSJ gives a succinct overview of the banks that would be the most affected should the UK vote to leave.

To start, the problems that UK banks will encounter would be twofold. The banks would potentially lose access to European markets, and the next wave of concern would be presumably a weaker pound accompanied by higher interest rates – the latter hurting those who are already highly indebted.

Before getting into the negative impacts for the UK banks, there is one bank who may high five voters if a leave vote is pushed through. The Royal Bank of Scotland, who is mostly state-owned, is struggling with the cost and complexity of splitting off a chunk of itself to satisfy European rules – this would potentially go away if the UK were no longer a part of the EU.

As far as the banks that would be most negatively impacted, the WSJ notes that Barclays (BCS) and HSBC (HSBC) have the most business in Europe. Barclays achieved just under 9% of its profits from continental Europe in 2015, while HSBC derived 5.5% of its profits from continental Europe.

As the WSJ points out, local businesses could become more difficult to run from the UK

Local businesses could become much more difficult to run from the U.K. if a Brexit vote provokes a big change in the trade arrangements with the rest of Europe. Meanwhile, their large London-based investment banks—and those of other European and U.S. groups—would also face losing direct access to Europe without a new trade deal that preserved Britain’s “passport” for services.

In this case, Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas and Société Générale, for example, would suffer some of the same disruption and relocation costs as Barclays or HSBC.