THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

One legacy of the British Empire was the focus on London as the financial center of Europe.Even as part of the EU, the finacial center stayed and grew in London. And now in anticipation of Brexit all the banks that made London their European hub are parceling out their offices across Europe.

In Paris, an empty Art Deco postal office is on its way to becoming Bank of America’s headquarters for its European brokerage arm. Where telegraph operators once tapped out messages, hundreds of traders and sales people will be working by spring.

In Frankfurt, Morgan Stanley’s European hub will double its staff of 200. Germany’s financial center, which wooed financial firms in London with a “Fall in love with Frankfurt” video, is welcoming investment bankers from Goldman Sachs and Citigroup.

The financial landscape of Europe is changing as banks shift employees and hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of assets from London to new subsidiaries across the bloc in time for Britain’s divorce from the European Union, a process known as Brexit, on March 29.

Banks are adjusting contracts with “Brexit clauses” to protect themselves if the separation is chaotic. Lawyers are checking regulations, jurisdiction by jurisdiction, to gird for possible future contractual disputes.

Cities across the Continent have been vying for a piece of an industry that represents about 7 percent of Britain’s gross domestic product and more than a million jobs there.

Frankfurt, Paris, Dublin and Luxembourg will be the first to secure new business as financial services companies gauge how profitable London remains. In the next months, these cities, along with Madrid and Milan, will find more traders, compliance teams, human resource managers and technology workers in their midst. Amsterdam will become home to more European markets.

One big Brexit beneficiary is Dublin, where Bank of America, Citigroup and Barclays are expanding their ranks. “Dublin is our headquarters for our European bank now, full stop,” said Anne M. Finucane, vice chairwoman of Bank of America, which employs more than 800 people there.

“There isn’t a return. That bridge has been pulled up,” Ms. Finucane told the European Financial Forum on Wednesday. “From a trading perspective, likewise Paris would be the European trading arm.”

Since January, there have been near-daily revelations about what Britain stands to lose after leaving the European Union. Britain’s Office for National Statistics this week showed growth last year was the weakest since 2009, and growth in the last quarter was 0.2 percent.

Many financial companies are redeploying staff by the dozens — not the hundreds — because they are waiting to see whether the end is a messy breakup or a phased withdrawal, said David Pascoe, senior vice president for Europe at Cartus, a relocation company that moves 162,000 people a year.

So far, banks from the United States have relocated fewer than 1,000 employees from London. But the number could grow to 5,000 as the March deadline approaches, said banking officials and analysts.

“We’re seeing such a diverse range of cities because banks are saying they’re not going to be caught out again by having all their operations in one city,” Mr. Pascoe said. “They don’t want one country upsetting their operations again.”

London will still have its share of banks, it won't become some jerkwater branch office any time soon. But the dicks swinging in the City won't be as big as before.