Corporate treasury is rightly concerned over FTTs. It is not just the looming (in early 2014) EU FTT, there are also proposals to introduce one in the USA. M-Pesa, the mobile payment system in Kenya, has just had one slapped on it; and there are similar taxes in Hungary and Latin America. Plus there are likely to be more added.

The EU FTT tax will apply to transactions in which one party to the transaction is established in a participating member state and an FI established in a participating member-state which is party to the transaction. The tax will apply to sale and purchase of shares and bonds including MMFs, and to derivates. The impact of these taxes is always the same: they drive transactions away/off-shore or to cash.

In Europe one of the consequences of the EU FTT - which will be applied in Austria, Belgium, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain - is that it will be no longer be cost-effective to operate cash-coordination centres in these countries. But where do you relocate to?

The search is on for a country which will not introduce FTTs. UK? Switzerland?