This is interesting.
The UK Department for International Trade has shared a statement on the UK and US Trade and Investment Working Group. According to public officials, “the UK and US will work together to prepare the ground for a future [Free Trade Agreement] once the UK has left [the EU].”
Beyond the EU, the US is the UK’s largest trading partner accounting for a fifth of all exports. Trade between the 2 countries is worth over £160 billion a year. It’s also the single largest source of investment into the UK, standing at £252 billion at the end of 2015. The US remains the largest economy in the world (as an individual country & depending on how you measure things) followed by China. But the UK is no slouch coming in 5th place globally and 2nd place in Europe followed by Germany. Some prognosticators believe the UK can hurdle Germany and perhaps Japan potentially gaining a spot on the medal podium.
The Trade group has presently been discussing how to provide commercial continuity for US and UK businesses when the UK leaves the EU and what both sides can do to facilitate bilateral trade and investment. So if the EU decides to go hard on the UK, the US may be plan B thus creating a pan-Anglo trade block to rival continental Europe and, perhaps, other large trading blocs.
For finance (and Fintech of course) this can be quite interesting. London is currently the financial capital of Europe. Stronger ties to the US will not harm their status in the world. Combine this with a forward thinking tax regime and things may get interesting. The devil is in the details, of course, and there is a lot of runaway ahead before anything may be hammered out between the two countries.