Why Ireland's financial services industry may soon be thanking Obama

Whisper it, but there's a chance that Ireland's financial services industry should be slightly thankful for Barack Obama's rather populist hard-line stance.

As a result of his crackdown on tax havens like Bermuda and the Cayman Islands, a slew of insurance and reinsurance firms are looking to move their legal domicile to Ireland.

Now, his tough talking stand on the US banking sector - "If these folks want a fight, it's a fight I'm ready to have" - could see more financial firms peering through the shop window that is our favourable corporate tax rate.

The plans outlined yesterday, suggest that banks with large retail divisions should be barred from proprietary trading, running hedge funds and making private equity investments.

Cue panic and tumbling financial share prices - including those of Irish banks - quickly followed by back-slapping and potential emulation by UK politicians.

So, imagine that the UK government follows suit. Then suppose, as some have suggested, Barclays hives off its investment bank - Barclays Capital - and shifts its HQ to the US. Its retail bank will be all alone, and faced with an increasingly punitive tax regime.

"There's a fair chance that Barclays would move its legal home to Dublin or Amsterdam (where it almost went, when negotiating to buy ABN Amro a few years ago)," says the BBC's Robert Peston.

Sadly, this is where it might end, at least in terms of UK banks. Lloyds and RBS are still heavily indebted to the government, while HSBC and Standard Chartered are more likely to head east. Still, it's another feather in Ireland's bow.