It has happened: an international bank is moving its international headquarters far away from London

It's only Standard Bank, but even so.

When we suggested back in October 2010 that Standard Bank might be pulling back from the City, the bank strenuously exerted itself in the direction of complete and total denial.

First it told us, "There was no truth" in our statement. And then it came back and told us, "We remain firmly committed to our international business and its head office location in London."

Not. Any. More.

The Financial Times reports the Standard Bank has 're-evaluated' its 'strategic requirement' for a London base and decided:

'the capital base is too big and the costs are too high."

Capital requirements for UK banks are being increased under Basel III and the stricter than anticipated

ringfencing of retail deposits. In truth, the latter is unlikely to impact Standard Bank, whose chief executive told

Financial News that the move away from London had nothing to do with increased regulation here and everything to do with limits on foreign currency lending in South Africa.

Henceforth, Standard Bank's 'international business' will be headquartered in Johannesburg and 'certain' business lines will be moved there. Whether it will really remain international is a moot point, given that Jo-burg is also Standard Bank's home town. However, it's notable that South Africa has several advantages over the City of London: not only is it in roughly the same time zone, but the weather is better and the people are cheaper.

London, on the other hand, is expensive, rainy, capital-hungry and has a riotous populace. From now on, Standard Bank will merely maintain a legal presence here.

The bank currently employs 1,000 people in the City, down from 1,200 a year ago. The move to J-burg will apparently entail 'pockets' of redundancies. We'd say those pockets could be fairly deep.