Barclaycard closing our a/cs on November 16th!

I have heard nothing from Coutts yet.

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Hi Sue,
Thanks for your information and I have just pinged an email to Money Box in the hope that their researchers might look into this.

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By the way, those of you who have received the dreaded email/letter yesterday, do you remember /have you on file correspondence of March 2019 talking about this?

We certainly don’t - but that doesn’t mean much as if a comment along the lines of “then we will close your account” was embedded in the midst of a load of other waffle about Brexit then almost certainly we didn’t read it and just binned it.

To leave the gap from March 2019 until now I think is appalling - but then I suspect they will blame COVID-19 for disrupting their procedures.

Barclaycard’s Friday email and letter had the following sentence:

We were in touch in March 2019 about the way the UK leaving the European Union (EU) could affect some of our customers with an address in the European Economic Area

Does anyone remember receiving that communication? Or, indeed, remember from that communication that what they are doing now was a possibility?

I have been speaking with the Financial Ombudsman this morning and the person I was speaking to said that they “encourage” financial institutions to report changes to their customers regarding their accounts in a “timely manner”. I think there is every possibility that Barclaycard’s behaviour has not been that. March 2019 was too early and only two month’s notice is too late.
She asked if I had raised a complaint with Barclaycard. I now intend to do so and would encourage anyone here who has been affected to do the same.

Secondly, I raised with her the possibility that our UK bank accounts might have to close given the issue around “equivalence” and the serious consequences for those of us who still hold UK accounts.
She was not aware of this and has promised to pass it up the line. She agreed we need to know sooner rather than later and it needs to be authoritative information and not gossip on social media.

Given that we are only just over 3 months away from all of this OH and I have started raising @Poquelin’s “sh** storm” sooner rather than later. So, planning on speaking to FCA, our own banks, the overseas pension service and our own pension companies.

I’ve already spoken to Transferwise about the borderless account I hold with them. The person I spoke to on the helpline implied I would be able to pay my UK pensions into it and hold the money in sterling even with my French address. BUT she went on to say that Transferwise use UK banks as correspondent banks, so I’m not convinced she is right. We’ll see. Something to check with the FCA and also the pension cos (whether they would be prepared to pay my pension into Transferwise’s sterling account which is more like a brokerage a/c than a true bank a/c).

If anyone is able to get a new UK credit card with no UK address, we’d be interested to know.

I’m not sure how Transferwise have set up the Borderless Account but their currency business operates without direct transfer of funds across borders. The chances are that they already need licences to operate in the UK and EU so might not be affected.

I hope you are right Paul. She certainly confirmed that they use EU banks for anyone with a euro “purse” within their borderless a/c and UK banks for any sterling “purse”

Do you have to declare an account with TW as a foreign account on your tax return?
An account with Revolut has to be declared and I wouldn’t see TW as being anything different.

@graham Yes, I have an IBAN number for my borderless a/c

so do I (for Revolut) but it begins with GB… does your TW a/c IBAN begin with FR?

OH just had a conversation with the Pensions Service who are not in the least surprised and he was told they are already getting calls for about a year from pensioners abroad saying their banks have closed their accounts.

The FCA were able to offer no comfort. See attached link on the FCA and Brexit:

I strongly suggest that any of you with sterling UK bank accounts who hope to continue to have such an account on 01/01/21 get in touch with your bank - CEO or Chairman ideally - this is not something that can be dealt with at a helpline level or customer services department. This will be a commercial and political decision at the most senior level.

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I only have a euro “purse” at the moment and the IBAN number starts with BE. I’m going to set up a sterling “purse” now and see what that shows me.

Just opened sterling “purse” and the IBAN number is GB.

Yup, thought so. The BE is for Belgium and the GB for UK so the account with TW is a foreign account (ie outside FR) so needs to be declared with your tax return on the appropriate form (3916) on-line each year whether or not you have funds in the account (or wallet).

I will do Graham. Not a problem. We do returns for UK and France.

If you’re not familiar with it, the 3916 is a «simple» form to complete - don’t be put off by all the unnecessary bits. Simply the account holder(s), it’s number, the bank address and when it was opened (if you can remember). There are other sections relating to societies but they can be left blank if they don’t apply to you.

Hi Graham, thanks for the info. We do all of our tax through a tax adviser here in France.

Just be aware the Transferwise and Revolut and a lot of these 'new banks ’ are not covered by the financial services compensation scheme. They hold your money in another bank- because technically they are not yet a bank - certainly in the UK.

Thanks Sue for the warning. I checked with TW today and they are regulated by the FCA but of course that’s not the same as the compensation scheme.

You an see a clear comparison here between TW and Revolut.

Interesting stuff.

Just spoken to a journalist Darin Graham at Money Box. They are taking this up and will be doing an item on this in their programme this coming Saturday (12 noon UK time).
He tells me they have been receiving emails about this mainly from France, Germany and the Netherlands.

They also will be covering Lloyds closing their EU accounts as well and he is looking to talk, this week, to people who are affected by Lloyds’ behaviour. If anyone here has been affected by Lloyds (or knows someone who has) and would be willing to talk to Darin, please PM me and I will give you Darin’s email address.

Let’s keep raising that sh** storm! :grin: