“Many types of entities – including banks; insurance companies; asset management firms; and payments and electronic money institutions – have made applications to the Central Bank of Ireland,” Professor Lane said.

He made his comments at the European Financial Forum in Dublin today.

“The potential activities range from broker dealers; trading venues; electronic money institutions; commercial insurance and retail insurance,” the Professor said.

“We expect the current levels of authorisation and supervisory engagements with firms to increase further,” he added.

Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley will make decisions on redeploying staff to its chosen locations of Frankfurt, Paris and Dublin as a result of Brexit very early this year, its president said today.

“We’ll be making decisions very early this year. What the politicians don’t understand is these are people,” Colm Kelleher told the European Financial Forum.

Asked if the bank would need to know by the end of March the terms of the transition agreement that will ease Britain out of the bloc, Kelleher said that was “pretty fair”.

He added that the size of any moves would depend on the shape of the Brexit deal.