Everything you ever wanted to know about Brexit (but didn’t have time to read)

There are few issues more challenging for the City of London and the financial services industry than the potential implications of Brexit. Yet there are few things less enticing than the prospect of reading the many dozens of often dense reports written on the subject. New Financial, a think tank launched in September 2014, read more than 70 reports on the potential impact of Brexit and summarised nearly 50 of them, coming up with a summary of the opposing outlooks.

10-point summary of the optimistic outlook for Brexit

■ Much of the pessimism over the outlook for the City of London has been overdone. For most firms in the UK, passporting is not a significant part of their business model and, even at larger investment banks and asset managers, it accounts for only about one-fifth of the business they conduct in London.

While some firms may have to relocate some staff and operations to the EU, the impact on business volumes and jobs in the UK will be manageable, and far less than claims that hundreds of thousands of jobs will be lost.

■ The most likely settlement is an equivalence-based framework in which UK-based financial institutions and market participants can continue to...