Now outside of the European Union, the U.K. is free to create its own rules to regulate the financial sector, centered in the City of London. LONDON—The British government said Friday it would ease regulatory rules on banks, insurers and investors to bolster London’s status as a global financial hub after its allure was dented by Britain’s departure from the European Union. The U.K. presented a 30 point-plan called the “Edinburgh reforms” that the government hailed as a regulatory fine-tuning to boost the British economy, which has suffered a severe slowdown in recent years and is entering a recession. The government said the regulatory changes strike a balance between boosting competitiveness of the country’s financial sector, one of the U.K. economy’s few engines of growth, while guarding against a return to the freewheeling days that led to the 2008 financial crisis.

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