Brits living in the EU face bank account closure “lottery” because of Brexit
Britons abroad face a current account closure “lottery” as banks start to cut services in EU countries because of Brexit.
Britain’s biggest bank, Lloyds Banking Group, which also owns Halifax and Bank of Scotland, has written to 13,000 expats who live in Europe to tell them their accounts held in Britain will close from November. The move affects personal and business customers in Holland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Slovakia.
Cross-border rules after Brexit mean British banks will no longer be able to provide UK banking services to expats resident in EU countries unless they set up a separate legal entity in each region. This creates added costs for the banks and will result in services being cut in countries where it no longer makes financial sense to operate. Each bank will make its own decision on account closures according to the amount of business it does in each EU nation and the cost of keeping services going.
Customers have said they face a “lottery” as some banks cut services in their country of residence while others keep them going – and not all banks have announced their intentions yet.
David Coupar, 66, lives in Holland with his Dutch wife, but has a British account that he uses to manage part of his pension income. He has been a Lloyds customer for 40 years and has £80,000 in the account set aside to buy a second property in England.
“I was stunned when they told me they were closing the account,” he said. “It’s hard to know which banks are still going to be offering services and whether if I switch to a new one they could just close my account again later on. It’s also going to be virtually impossible to open an account if I have to fly home to go into a branch with all the restrictions in place because of the pandemic,” he added.
Lloyds said its decision was regrettable and it had told affected customers they would need to make other arrangements for any regular payments before it closed their account. The changes apply to all brands across the Lloyds group.
HSBC has a large number of customers in France and has already moved most who still use a British bank account to its French arm. It is now considering applying for legal permission to continue to provide UK services in some countries. The bank also has a significant number of customers in Germany and Switzerland. A spokesman said no account closures were planned for now.
Barclays is “reviewing the situation” to make sure it complies with the law in each EU country in which it has customers as the Brexit transition progresses and said it would contact anyone affected by account closures directly.
Santander and NatWest, which owns RBS, said they had no plans to close the accounts of any customers resident in the EU at present.
