The chief executive of ING has told news agency Bloomberg that the Dutch bank would probably reduce its London staffing levels if Britain withdraws from Europe.

‘If some of the mega banks, the market banks, leave London, we will go with the flow,’ Ralph Hamers said. ‘Either the circus of the financial markets is located in London or it is going to be elsewhere.’

ING runs global investment banking and emerging markets operations in London, where it has around 650 employees.

Bad news

Hamers said Britain leaving the EU would be ‘bad news of the EU, bad news for business’. A string of leading banks have already warned about the likely impact of a Brexit on London as a financial hub.

Last month, Shell’s chief executive Ben van Beurden said that a Brexit would damage the oil giant.

‘We are a company with a strong heritage in the UK and on the continent,’ he told the Sunday Times in January.  ‘There would be a real break between the two, which would affect freedom of movement of staff, trade — we would be impacted.’