Britain's exit from the EU will probably look like a messy divorce in which both partners try to take the biggest share of the assets while hurting the other partner as much as possible. Britain has enjoyed years as the financial center of the EU and about 75,000 jobs are on the line if it loses that privilege. Hence, Britain will most likely be fighting tooth and nail to retain its position as the financial center of Europe.

Interestingly, Britain's Financial Services minister, Simon Kirby has expressed the government's firm resolved to retain its position as Europe's top financial center. During a banking conference in the City of London, Kirby said, "Can the UK still be one of the best financial centers anywhere in the world, even if we're outside the EU? Well, let me say this is an absolute priority for this government." The minister also urged banks to exercise caution and be hopeful about a post-Brexit world. He says, "We are confident we can weather any storm that comes our way."

Brexit comes with several financial challenges, but this also presents an opportunity for market players to capitalize on the ensuing volatility. Forex traders might want to consider leveraging the current volatility in the value of the Pound to profit from the currency markets. For those are still trying to learn the ropes for trading the volatility presented by Brexit, it would be advisable to find an education center online or otherwise, where they can learn a few tricks for event-driven trading like pros.

The EU could make an exit difficult for Britain

The EU will try as much as possible to make a scapegoat out of Britain in order to deter other countries from taking a similar route. Britain is one of the key players that make the EU strong economically and politically, and its exit will surely weaken the economic and political strength of the Eurozone. The fear of how the EU might make the Brexit difficult for Britain is already causing the Pound Sterling to fall to historical lows.

Developments in the financial markets suggest that the Pound Sterling has crashed to its lowest levels since the uncertainties of a post-Brexit Europe started weighing the markets down. Last week the Pound touched a new 31-year low against the USD, and the current exchange rate trend against major currencies suggest that it could fall even further as uncertainties over the separation process crop up.

The more worrisome trend is that the weakness in the Pound could trigger weakness in other assets.  Kit Juckes, a currency expert at Societe Generale notes that "in real effective terms, sterling is 10% lower than it was in 1992 after leaving the ERM and is now weaker than it was after Lehman… further weakness from here might simply reflect a loss of confidence and be bad for UK assets (gilts, equities, house prices, you name it...) in general."

Britain could lose hundreds of billions of Pounds in a hard Brexit

The possibility that Britain might be hit with an economic crisis once the Brexit process is completed is already causing investors to lose sleep. UK's economic position is closely linked with the EU and a Brexit process that ends on a sour note is likely to leave the UK with the short end of the stick, at least for the first couple of years. A report from Independent submits that Britain could lose £66 billion in tax revenue each year if it doesn’t divest itself peacefully from the EU.

Another Reuters report submits that about 2.2 million people are employed by the financial services industry in Britain. Those people contribute as much as €190B ($240 billion), which amounts to 11.8% of output to Britain's GDP as per the year 2014 numbers. In essence, the financial services industry is the biggest tax generator in the country.

Yet, the reality of a post-Brexit world is that Britain might lose as much as 75,000 financial services jobs if financial institutions are forced to move their capital market operations out of London. The more worrisome part is that a large number of jobs left behind might be subject to redundancy if the employers think it would be too expensive to lay off the workers or force them to move to other countries.