Bank of England's PRA clarifies status of international bank branches

LONDON (Reuters) -The Bank of England's Prudential Regulation Authority clarified its expectations around business conducted within branches of international banks in Britain, introducing a new threshold around deposits covered by the UK's compensation scheme.

The PRA said on Tuesday it was introducing a new indicative threshold of 300 million pounds ($401 million) of total retail and small business instant access deposits, saying beyond this it expected international banks to operate as subsidiaries rather than branches.

"These changes will maintain the UK’s very open approach to international banking, while filling a gap we identified in our regime and increasing some thresholds to support competitiveness and growth," the PRA said, adding that the clarification was partly a response to lessons learned from the failure of Silicon Valley Bank in 2023.

($1 = 0.7478 pounds)

(Reporting by Sachin Ravikumar, writing by Sarah Young)