The fundamental issue and in simple terms is that when the uk was in EU a uk domiciled bank ie Barclays Uk could operate across the EU under one licence enabling it to deliver their full range of services including “advice” aka selling and recommending further financial products. Known as Financial passporting.
Uk banks and other financial providers now have to be registered separately in every EU county if they want to do this. I am told that the big mainstream banks who use a lot of automation to promote and sell products etc can’t be sure they would not cross over to advice so have decided not to allow residents in the EU to have accounts. Offering advice to none uk residents could incur significant penalties from both Uk and EU regulators if no local licence was held.
The only way to avoid this would be to register and operate a local bank in relevant EU country …and its not commercially worth it.
This seems to resonate with the fact some financial organisations…mainly online offering accounts and who do not offer advice but merely “current/savings” accounts will open accounts.
It still doesn’t explain why some banks continue to allow accounts from foreign based customers, while at the same time others are closing them down, and all seem to refuse to open new accounts.
I tread very carefully with no sign of my own bank closing us down and another withdrawing the credit card that we have had with them for decades even since not having an account there.
The exceptions seem to make liars of those who refuse or close accounts. Who would have thought it?
We have accounts with Nationwide and the Coop but both of them explained that we’d have to open any new accounts we wanted (e.g.savings) with them before Brexit actually kicked in as they don’t now open new ones of any sort for non-residents. However, there is no sign of them closing existing ones and I think they would have by now if they were going to so I shouldn’t worry over-much @David_Spardo
I thought my post might have explained …most of the big banks, NW, Barclays Lloyds, HSBC automatically have built in marketing and wealth advice programmes which they can’t offer to expats due to “passporting”, so to ensure they don’t break both UK and EU regulators rules they simply strike off customers with overseas adresses from their portfolio unless they have specific off shore depts’ to manage very wealthy clients …or unless they have set up a subsidiary bank incorporated in a country…and in the main it just isn’t worth it or ring fencing a few overseeas customers.
I don’t consider myself wealthy by any stretch of my imagination but perhaps HSBC do?
As a French resident post brexit Barclays closed my accounts so I opened one with HSBC.
Admittedly it took a few months to do so which is another story so while Barclays struck me off HSBC took me on.
How does that fit with your explanation?
Unless you’re talking Metro Bank or one of the fintechs (Starling, Monzo), there is nothing whatsoever in banking that is simple because like most things that run the world they are made up of a hotchpotch of incredibly old systems that are incredibly fragmented with bits bolted on here there and everywhere. There is no such thing as a simple opt-out in the tech.
RBS for example have spent an absolute fortune on their apps recently but there are bits of the backend that can in no way talk to bits of the other systems. There is no way when dealing with potentially very costly mistakes to just switch off marketing messages and be 100% certain nothing at all will ever be shown. It’s good enough that they’re covered for ‘normal’ customers, if somehow something slipped through the net that could be considered marketing for example, but as I say, the banks are generally running on such an outdated tech stack that things that should be very easy are anything but.
That’s why companies like Starling and 10X are doing big business now selling their tech to other banks. In previous days they’d get in one of the big infrastructure firms to replace bits at a time, Nationwide did this (I forget the firm), but now people are just saying “starling has 5 million of their own customers using their tech daily, it works, let’s just buy it from them. “
@kirsteastevenson …what you say is absolutely true, and i speak from experience of trying to help big consumer facing companies unify many legacy systems they acquired by take over or which were developed on 1st generation mainframe systems.
After decades Citibank informed me in September they were closing my sterling account wef November 2023, as I was not a “high value” customer. Weeks before that I started trying to find a replacement but came up againgst the non-UK resident problem and/or not having anything like £50-80K to put on deposit (ex-pat accounts in CI or IOM). Seemed that only NatWest or HSBC would accept me as had “reasonable” income (pensions). Couldn’t get past NatWest insistence on photo/video links (not very tech savvy plus signal not that good here!) and have now spent four months trying to get account with HSBC. Their systems are terrible - very “siloed”, poor inter department communication is appaling, and I now have three Complaint Cases running with them. Am having to try and organise all sorts of “work arounds” to get sterling pensions transferred to my french bank and pay my bills here, whilst still paying certain ongoing commitments/subscriptions in sterling without getting hit with lousy exchange rates. Now considering going to UK Financial Ombudsman and/or consumer “champions”. Global Britain post-Brexit, I think not!
Welcome @GaryClements
I understand your frustration but stick with it.
HSBC are your only chance and the application process is doable, I know as have done it.
It took some 6 months and like you a number of complaints which resulted in a compensation payment from them!
One thought.
If you have any trips arranged to UK in near future then take all your documents and apply ocer the counter
Our daughter did that and it worked.
Might be worth trying Nationwide Building Society - they definitely let people who have accounts continue to use them after they have moved to France, and their website only mentions the Netherlands and Italy as being specifically excluded.
Do you still have a UK address of some kind (maybe a relative’s) that you could use while opening the account, then change the address to your French one later?
Thanks for the welcome JohnBoy. Seems I’ve got a couple of months to go before HSBC might provide me with an account!
Unfortunately a UK trip (or even Jersey - where I used to live) is tricky for me now due to mobility issues, but I’m still plugging away. As well as all the time and aggro it is costing me money as I’m using up the small savings that I can still access as they are in France.
Have just started looking at Credit Agricoles Britline - a viable option?
Thanks also to ChrisMann for the welcome.
Don’t think Nationwide route could help with my situation. I’ve been here a long time and am averse to doing anything that might get me the wrong side of French Impots. They were very good when I found that that Jersey Income Tax authorities have been deducting tax directly from my pension for a number of years when they actually had no authority to do so (CI was only ever an Associate Member of EU and not party to certain protocols and agreements e.g. double taxation. That particular issue took me three years to sort out!
Thanks for the suggestion though.
