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Brexit Jobs Threat At Credit Card Giant Visa

Hundreds of British-based jobs at the credit card giant Visa (Xetra: A0NC7B - news) could be forced to relocate to the Continent in the wake of last week's EU referendum.

Sky News has learnt that an agreement in the recent £17.5bn takeover of Visa's European operations by its American sister company included a stipulation that data from Visa card transactions should not leave Europe.

A source in Frankfurt said that German regulators, and possibly others elsewhere in the EU, were expected to push for Visa's UK-based data centre operations to be shifted to a market within the EU once Britain leaves the trading bloc.

Well over 1,000 people work for Visa in London, according to a spokeswoman for the company, with hundreds of them engaged in data centre-related activities.

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No decisions about relocating jobs has been taken and is unlikely to be until the detail of Britain's future trading arrangements with the EU are close to being finalised.

Visa is the world's largest credit and debit card issuer, with its rival Mastercard currently in talks to acquire the British payments group Vocalink in an attempt to close the gap.

One insider said it was not yet clear whether the agreement around data would necessarily exclude the UK from hosting Visa's data centres even once the country had left the EU.

However, the possibility that some operations could move away from the UK highlights two significant points arising from the outcome of last week's poll.

The first is that some job losses in the UK could be forced on employers as a consequence of regulatory requirements.

A number of the world's largest investment banks, including Citi, Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS-PB - news) and JP Morgan - all of which donated to the 'Remain' campaign - have said that they will be forced to move roles to other EU financial centres if the UK is denied access to the single market's passporting regime.

The second point illustrated by the Visa dilemma is that rivals such as Frankfurt are already scenting tangible opportunities to attract business from the UK as a result of the Brexit vote.

“The process and timing for the UK leaving Europe remains unclear," a Visa spokeswoman said.

"While we continue to monitor the situation carefully, it is premature to speculate on whether possible changes to the location of our data centres would make sense or be required.”

Some business leaders who attended a gathering of chief executives organised by The Times on Tuesday warned that the Brexit vote would mean that they diverted future investments abroad.

However, others have pointed to buying opportunities arising from the weakening pound, including Guo Guangchang, the head of Chinese conglomerate Fosun, which owns a stake in Thomas Cook (Xetra: A0MR3W - news) .

Sajid Javid, the Business Secretary, said on Tuesday that a number of major inward investors had reaffirmed their commitment to the UK, including the Chinese telecoms equipment-maker Huawei.

That assertion jarred with Mr Javid's forecasts of economic doom during the referendum campaign.

Visa Inc's takeover of Visa Europe crystallised huge windfalls for British banks, including Barclays (LSE: BARC.L - news) and Lloyds, which each received payouts worth many hundreds of millions of pounds.

Each of ‎the roughly 3,000 banks which were shareholders in Visa Europe owned a single share in the company, with the economic value of their stakes determined by the volume of business conducted through the Visa network.