Bank of Ireland’s Joe Oliver was joined by head of FX Trading & Strategy Lee Evans and head of manufacturing for business banking Brían Evans to discuss the latest on Brexit.
Bank of Ireland’s latest Brexit update took place this week as senior dealer Joe Oliver was joined by head of FX Trading & Strategy Lee Evans and head of manufacturing for business banking Brían Evans.
The three sat down in Grand Canal Square to discuss the latest developments around Brexit after Tuesday’s “Plan B” vote in the UK Parliament and the challenges facing Irish businesses at present.
Lee Evans opened by discussing Tuesday’s vote and what it means for foreign exchange. “We had the votes on the amendments in the UK parliament and there were three main amendments that took the focus of currency markets – the Spellman amendment, the Brady amendment and the Cooper amendment.
“Going back to last week, we’ve seen a strengthening in Sterling. It’s 5% stronger versus the Euro since the highs in December. One of the things we’ve been saying to customers is to expect more volatility in the exchange rate; the trading range in 2019 has already eclipsed the entire range of last year. For a couple of years now, we’ve been very focused on the downside for Sterling and the negative implications of Brexit, but we are saying to customers that there are two sides to it and risks in both directions.”
“We import a lot of product from the UK and we have an opportunity to displace that in the Irish market”
Brían Evans gave a great insight into the biggest challenges for manufacturing businesses and what they need to address ahead of Britain leaving the EU. “In the last two and a half years since the vote to leave the EU, I’ve visited over
