UK financial services firms seeking to set up post-Brexit hubs in Amsterdam have been using the Covid pandemic as "a welcome excuse" not to shift the required number of staff to the European trading bloc, a senior executive at the Dutch capital's financial regulator has said.

Matthijs Geneste, a senior supervisor in capital market infrastructure and the international capital markets desk at the Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets, or AFM, said during a 17 February webinar, that some entities appeared to be "waiting a bit longer than others with moving staff despite the fact that it was common knowledge that Brexit... would happen".