A tide of EU finance firms may need to apply for licences to operate in the UK after Brexit, potentially leaving the Bank of England’s resources stretched thin, a top regulator has warned.

More than 8,000 businesses are registered elsewhere in the EU and use the ‘passport’ rules to access the UK market.

If they need to apply for UK licences after Brexit then it could place a heavy burden on British regulators.

“The authorisation, and then the ongoing supervision, of a significant number of additional firms is likely to place a material extra burden on the Prudential Regulation Authority’s resources,” said the PRA’s chief executive Sam Woods.

“It is incumbent on us to manage this burden but we may have to make some difficult prioritisation decisions in order to accommodate it.”