Germany says rising number of UK-based banks interested in move to Frankfurt

By Arno Schuetze and Joshua Franklin

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - The German finance ministry said it is fielding an increasing number of requests from financial institutions in Britain considering a move to Germany following the UK's decision to leave the European Union.

Germany's financial centre Frankfurt, home to Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank, is seeking to lure financial institutions from Britain, vying with Paris and other European cities to attract business from London, Europe's dominant financial centre.

"Frankfurt is a love at second sight. But a love that lasts all the longer," state secretary Thomas Steffen, a senior finance ministry official, said at a banking conference on Monday.

"I have to say that we at the finance ministry are registering an increasing number of requests. And we are very, very open to such discussions," he said.

He said he expected a number of decisions to be taken early in 2017.

Frankfurt is keen to secure the European Banking Authority (EBA), which oversees the regulation of banks across the European Union and has already said it will have to move from London after Britain's decision to leave the EU.

Steffen said the EBA would be in good hands in Frankfurt, considering the city was already home to the European Central Bank, its banking supervisor SSM and insurance watchdog EIOPA.

Thomas Schaefer, the finance minister of the German state of Hesse, where Frankfurt is located, said the state's prime minister was currently meeting bank executives in New York to make the case for the city.

Sources have told Reuters that Goldman Sachs is considering shifting some of its assets and operations from London to Frankfurt, as it tries to secure access to the European Union market when Britain leaves the bloc.

Steffen, a former executive at Germany's financial watchdog Bafin, said Bafin was working on improving its services for British customers.

He said he hoped that the EU and Britain would not start competing over who could loosen financial regulation faster.

"Light touch in terms of regulation, that was yesterday. I hope it remains a thing of the past," he said.

Three out of four companies in Britain with sales between 100 million pounds and 1 billion pounds ($125 million to $1.25 billion) across sectors have considered moving operations to the European continent after the Brexit vote, a survey by KPMG showed in September.

Steffen said he expected that negotiations with Britain on the terms of Brexit to be fair, tough and lengthy.

He said allowing generous terms or even a generous transition period to adapt to new terms was not an option as the EU would want to avoid a domino effect of other EU member states pulling out or cherry-picking rules beneficial to them.

"There cannot be an EU a la carte," Steffen said, adding that he would look to keep negative effects from Brexit at a minimum. "But we cannot guarantee anything."

($1 = 0.8004 pounds)

(Reporting by Arno Schuetze and Joshua Franklin; Editing by Susan Fenton)