The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has become the first office tenant of the £2 billion ($3.3 billion/€2.4 billion) Stratford International Quarter.

It will move into a 430,000 square foot space – accounting for around 10 per cent of the total available – when the lease on its current headquarters in London's financial district Canary Wharf expires in 2018.

The International Quarter is being built by Australian developer Lend Lease and government-backed firm London & Continental Railways (LCR).

Four million square feet of commercial space, 350 new homes and a hotel, which will overlook the former London 2012 Athletes' Village now known as East Village, will all be included.

It has been described as a "metropolitan business district for London that is thriving, sustainable, successful and inclusive" by those behind it.

The FCA was formed in 2013 as a successor to the Financial Services Authority.

It currently has around 3,000 staff and its new offices are set to be completed by 2017.

The Olympic Park, which is set to fully reopen tomorrow, is likely to have a number of major organisations based there as talks continue ©Getty Images



"The development heralds a new generation of offices in London which will have a similarly transformative impact to the development of Canary Wharf more than 20 years ago," Lend Lease Europe's chief executive Dan Labbad told Reuters.

Lend Lease and LCR are understood to be in talks with other major organisations about renting space.

The south of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park will open to the public tomorrow, marking the first time since the end of London 2012 that visitors can explore the whole of the Park.

Meanwhile, the former press and broadcast centres on the Park are being transformed into a "world-leading creative and digital cluster".

Here East is set to bring global companies together with East London's most innovative start-ups under one million square feet of space, according to developers iCITY.

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