About 150 tents – and various makeshift tarpaulin shelters – remain outside St Paul's Cathedral guardian.co.uk

The protest camp against the extremes of global capitalism in London's financial district is giving every sign of preparing to become a permanent fixture, with activists organising mobile kitchens and toilet blocks, and seeking to maintain good relations with officials at St Paul's cathedral, in whose shadow they have pitched their tents.

Those involved with the Occupy the London Stock Exchange movement, which set up over the weekend, say they have no definite long-term plans, not least because decisions are made day by day through mass votes. But the group aims to mimic the Occupy Wall Street protest that, in part, inspired it and that has spent several weeks based in New York's banking and stockbroking centre.

The London group had intended to occupy Paternoster Square, the privately owned business development that houses the stock exchange headquarters, as well as the UK base for Goldman Sachs, on Saturday. However, police sealed off the square when protesters first massed and they instead took over a section of paved and cobbled ground in the western lee of St Paul's, part of which is owned by the church and part by the Corporation of London, which administers the City district.

By Monday about 200 tents were based there, as well as an increasingly intricate series of tarpaulin-covered structures to house necessities such as food, recycling and rubbish, and facilitate relations with the media. At a meeting on Monday afternoon activists said they were in talks with a marquee company over donations of bigger, more permanent structures, allowing them to set up a "visitor centre" and an "outreach group" to spread the message via local schools and businesses.

A "Freedom University" library tent, complete with a shelf of books, had sprung up. There were even semi-official Occupy London T-shirts on sale, with profits redirected to the cause.

There is a big incentive to remain until 9 November at least, as that is the date for a major march organised by the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts, which has been routed into the City rather than towards parliament to meet up with the occupation.

"How long will we stay? Well, that's the million dollar question, isn't it?" said Lucy Johnson, 33, a freelance arts education worker. "It's hard to occupy the middle of a city, especially in the winter. But I hope we'll stay long enough to get our message across."

That message, spelled out in a nine-point manifesto on the group's website, calls the current financial system "unsustainable … undemocratic and unjust" and demands better regulation as well as a halt to government cuts.

While the language of the placards festooned across the camp occasionally sounds aggressive, with its talk of crisis and revolution, the activists are at pains to be welcoming and, in particular, not to alienate their ecclesiastical hosts. Noisy meetings have been rescheduled to avoid clashing with church services, with participants issuing self-imposed bans on taping posters to the cathedral walls – it could damage the stone – or loitering on the main steps lest they impede worshippers or tour groups.

The cathedral's message has been mixed. On Saturday its canon chancellor, the Rev Dr Giles Fraser, delighted protesters by saying he supported the right of the "good natured" crowd to remain. There later followed a more cautious official statement warning of the "various challenges" involved when a global tourist attraction gains such chaotic new neighbours.

A spokesman for St Paul's said Faser and others had since held "very positive and friendly" discussions with protesters, but he could not say how long the camp might be allowed to remain. "St Paul's fulfils many different roles in the community, and it's ultimately not a decision just for us," he said.

The co-operative spirit has even extended to City police, who said they were content to maintain a low-profile presence, given the lack of any significant disorder. When officers began fencing in the site on Sunday night they were persuaded to allow campers to chalk out a line beyond which tents should not be pitched to ensure walkways were not blocked, an agreement that held.

Concerns that the first working day of the protest could cause tensions between campers and finance staff on their way to work proved unfounded. There were a few vigorous, if polite, debates, but for the most part the City workers who came to look were the ones less antipathetic to the camp's aims.

"I've got quite a lot of sympathy for their message," said Alessio, 41, an investment banker, who like most workers preferred not to give his full name. "Most of my colleagues take a very different view – jokes about people not washing. I don't really challenge them. It wouldn't change anyone's mind, and I don't want to lose my job and end up sleeping in a tent myself."

Robert, a 26-year-old currency broker, was even more sympathetic. "I went on marches as a student and I feel I've got more in common with these people than a lot of colleagues, but that's just the way my life has gone."

For some, the charm offensive was a bit too much. "I was just offered a hug," said a male investment banker on his way to work. "I thought about it, but he was a man and he'd spent a couple of nights in a tent, and I've just had a shower, so I decided maybe not."

Landmark action

More tourists and worshippers than City workers are likely to walk by the tents pitched outside St Paul's, the nearest the activists from the Occupy the London Stock Exchange group could get to the stock exchange itself, and potentially raising questions about whether the protesters are in the right place.

The cathedral is not usually associated with London's financial district, and defining the "City" is not easy. Once it was more simple: the square mile – literally – that formed the boundaries of the Corporation of London, the local authority. But now it could as much mean Canary Wharf.

More obvious symbols of bankers' greed might be the steps outside the Royal Exchange, the imposing building outside Bank tube station, which would put protesters face to face with City workers – and possibly even the Bank of England governor, Sir Mervyn King, who works across the road. This is a "public highway".

But in many ways the protesters have made a clever choice. They are within a few minutes walk of the titans of capitalism, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America Merrill Lynch. They are also having an impact. One Goldman banker was offered a hug by the activists as he strode by yesterday morning. Jill Treanor