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Do you think that a German living in Spain, is somehow exempt from the new EU tax directive?
Barclays Closing the Accounts for Ex-pats.
- Thread starter Scarlet Pimpernel
- Start date
Do you think that a German living in Spain, is somehow exempt from the new EU tax directive?
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A surprising confession from you!
I saw in a job advert the other day that Lloyds have created a separate entity called Lloyds Brussels.
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They're investing in a sprout farm.
really? Can you explain a bit more please?
see also
"Ex-pat bank accounts closed due to Brexit
Money Box
Thousands of British people living in European countries have been told their UK bank accounts will be closed by the end of the year because of Brexit. Money Box has learnt that Lloyds Bank and Barclaycard have been writing to customers telling them to cut up their cards and pay off any outstanding overdrafts or debts in two months unless they can provide a UK address where they are resident."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000mrcm
What if you don’t pay them off and don’t have a U.K. address. Where will they find you?
They will just absorb your money.
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Makes sense to cancel credit cards. There used to be something like a a 6 year rule on credit card debts - if you left the country and didn't return for 6 years, they can't chase for payment. But his might be going back 20 years, and I might have misunderstood it!
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Tens of thousands of Britons who live in Europe are to be stripped of their UK bank accounts and credit cards within weeks, because the government has failed to negotiate post-Brexit rules.
A number of the biggest British banks, including Lloyds, Barclays and the Queen’s bank, Coutts, have started writing to expatriates to say they will stop serving them when the withdrawal agreement ends at 11pm on December 31.
Without a continuation of crucial pan-European banking rules, known as passporting, it will become illegal for UK banks to provide for British customers in the EU without applying for new banking licences.
As each of the 27 member states has a hotchpotch of different rules, it is a bureaucratic nightmare for institutions, and some are deciding simply to ditch certain countries.
A source at one leading British bank said: “In some cases, continuing to serve customers would be incredibly complex, extremely expensive and very time-consuming, and simply would not make economic sense. This is passporting — this is the reality of Brexit.”
In the past few weeks, banks have begun contacting customers who live in countries where the regulatory demands are considered too costly to tell them their accounts are being cancelled. Banks are making different decisions about where to apply for permission to continue operating — and which countries to abandon.
Lloyds, which is Britain’s biggest banking group and includes Halifax and Bank of Scotland, started writing to customers in August, telling them that their bank accounts would be shut on December 31.
So far, the bank has confirmed this applies to 13,000 customers, including those with current accounts in Holland, Slovakia, Germany, Ireland, Italy and Portugal. The bank would not reveal whether more countries will follow.
Lloyds said: “If customers have regular deposits into, or payments out of, their account, they will need to make other arrangements before their account is closed.”
Barclays said its banking and Barclaycard credit-card customers had started receiving letters, but would not say where or how many. Customers living in Spain, France and Belgium have told us their Barclaycards are to be cancelled.
Kristine Hendrickson, who lives in Brittany and has had her Barclaycard for more than 40 years, has received a letter telling her it will be terminated on November 16. “I’m absolutely furious about it — I have been a customer since 1974,” she said.
Barclays said: “In light of the UK leaving the EU at the end of 2020, we continue to review the services we offer to customers within the European Economic Area (EEA), and any impacted customers will be contacted directly. The timings for account closure will depend on the type of product that a customer holds, but we will always give notice to customers.”
Coutts, which counts some of the UK’s richest and most high-profile people among its customers, confirmed it would no longer serve customers based in the EU.
One company boss, who did not wish to be identified, said he faced a serious headache after the termination of his account, which he said contained “a considerable sum”, because he mostly lives in his Portuguese villa. In the UK, he receives a state pension, annuities and dividend income and pays all the usual bills, from insurance to utilities.
“How am I going to receive and pay these UK items without a UK bank account?” he asked. He said a number of expat friends were giving British banks the addresses of family members in the UK to keep their accounts.
Coutts said that the company boss would have to make “alternative banking arrangements” after December 31.
“In the event that no alternative to the European Economic Area passporting regime for financial services is agreed between the UK and EU, we have taken the difficult decision to withdraw from offering our services to clients who reside in the EEA,” the bank said.
NatWest and Santander said they had no plans to close accounts but were considering their options.
“We expect banks to treat their customers fairly and provide timely communications to enable them to make appropriate decisions,” the Treasury said. “However, the provision of banking services is a commercial decision for firms based on a variety of factors, including the local law and regulation of specific EEA countries.”
A number of the biggest British banks, including Lloyds, Barclays and the Queen’s bank, Coutts, have started writing to expatriates to say they will stop serving them when the withdrawal agreement ends at 11pm on December 31.
Without a continuation of crucial pan-European banking rules, known as passporting, it will become illegal for UK banks to provide for British customers in the EU without applying for new banking licences.
As each of the 27 member states has a hotchpotch of different rules, it is a bureaucratic nightmare for institutions, and some are deciding simply to ditch certain countries.
A source at one leading British bank said: “In some cases, continuing to serve customers would be incredibly complex, extremely expensive and very time-consuming, and simply would not make economic sense. This is passporting — this is the reality of Brexit.”
In the past few weeks, banks have begun contacting customers who live in countries where the regulatory demands are considered too costly to tell them their accounts are being cancelled. Banks are making different decisions about where to apply for permission to continue operating — and which countries to abandon.
Lloyds, which is Britain’s biggest banking group and includes Halifax and Bank of Scotland, started writing to customers in August, telling them that their bank accounts would be shut on December 31.
So far, the bank has confirmed this applies to 13,000 customers, including those with current accounts in Holland, Slovakia, Germany, Ireland, Italy and Portugal. The bank would not reveal whether more countries will follow.
Lloyds said: “If customers have regular deposits into, or payments out of, their account, they will need to make other arrangements before their account is closed.”
Barclays said its banking and Barclaycard credit-card customers had started receiving letters, but would not say where or how many. Customers living in Spain, France and Belgium have told us their Barclaycards are to be cancelled.
Kristine Hendrickson, who lives in Brittany and has had her Barclaycard for more than 40 years, has received a letter telling her it will be terminated on November 16. “I’m absolutely furious about it — I have been a customer since 1974,” she said.
Barclays said: “In light of the UK leaving the EU at the end of 2020, we continue to review the services we offer to customers within the European Economic Area (EEA), and any impacted customers will be contacted directly. The timings for account closure will depend on the type of product that a customer holds, but we will always give notice to customers.”
Coutts, which counts some of the UK’s richest and most high-profile people among its customers, confirmed it would no longer serve customers based in the EU.
One company boss, who did not wish to be identified, said he faced a serious headache after the termination of his account, which he said contained “a considerable sum”, because he mostly lives in his Portuguese villa. In the UK, he receives a state pension, annuities and dividend income and pays all the usual bills, from insurance to utilities.
“How am I going to receive and pay these UK items without a UK bank account?” he asked. He said a number of expat friends were giving British banks the addresses of family members in the UK to keep their accounts.
Coutts said that the company boss would have to make “alternative banking arrangements” after December 31.
“In the event that no alternative to the European Economic Area passporting regime for financial services is agreed between the UK and EU, we have taken the difficult decision to withdraw from offering our services to clients who reside in the EEA,” the bank said.
NatWest and Santander said they had no plans to close accounts but were considering their options.
“We expect banks to treat their customers fairly and provide timely communications to enable them to make appropriate decisions,” the Treasury said. “However, the provision of banking services is a commercial decision for firms based on a variety of factors, including the local law and regulation of specific EEA countries.”
And that in a nutshell is the chaos that awaits (!)
I doubt it, the Euro currency is a ponzi scheme and all the risk is underwritten by UK banks. They won't bite the hand that feeds them.
https://sputniknews.com/uk/20200920...is-a-high-risk-ponzi-scheme-city-figures-say/
The EU Commission said earlier this week it would allow UK clearing houses to continue processing international payments from firms in the EU for another two years, stepping back from earlier threats to cut the City of London off from the EU finance market.
Brussels cannot afford to lock out UK finance firms even after a no-deal Brexit - because the euro currency is a "massive Ponzi scheme."
The Express quoted a former Brexit minister and two City of London figures who said the European Union (EU) needed needed UK financiers to manage the risk on government debts in the eurozone to keep the currency afloat.
That was after the powerful EU Commission backed down earlier this week on its threats to stop UK financial clearing houses processing international payments from companies in the 27 EU members states, extending the City's access to the lucrative market for another two years.
"This is because they cannot raise the capital themselves and they need the City of London," stressed former Brexit minister and Conservative MP David Jones. "The problem they have is that the euro is a massive Ponzi scheme and they have no real means of underpinning it."
Barney Reynolds, a partner at Shearman & Sterling LLP, said the role of the City of London in mitigating the risks of debt in the eurozone should not be underestimated.
“EU law treats the debt that finances the eurozone – eurozone member state debt – as risk free," Reynolds pointed out. "However, in fact it is highly risky since none of these countries controls the central bank issuing the euro currency.
“The result is there is a vast amount of unmanaged risk swishing around the EU financial system. Right now the UK mitigates that risk in London, which is where the EU financial system meets the global markets.”
Brexit: The UK’s Most Powerful Weapon is ‘The Threat to Walk Away’ Says Analyst
Reynolds advised the EU to agree a trade deal with the UK that would ensure City access to the EU finance market. “If they don’t, then the UK and US need to cauterise the risk to prevent it operating to the detriment of savers and investors around the world,” he warned.
Negotiations between Westminster and Brussels have been deadlocked for months over the EU's demand for continued access to British fishing waters and imposition of its rules against state aid to industry.
With the October 15 deadline for a deal looming, Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government is pushing legislation though Parliament to ensure Northern Ireland will remain within the UK's internal market. Government figures have admitted Internal Market Bill will breach the EU Withdrawal Agreement in "limited" ways, prompting a short-lived rebellion by Conservative MPs.
Former British Chambers of Commerce director-general John Longworth, now the chair of the pro-Brexit Foundation for Independence, accused the EU of “running a racket” on the euro. He said the financial weakness of poorer EU members kept the exchange rate artificially low, benefitting exports from Germany, the bloc's biggest economy.
“What the UK should do is say to the EU: ‘If you don’t play ball we’re going to actually lift this veil and expose the fact that the eurozone is a bust system built on nothing and the European banking system/corporate debt system/government debt system will be in serious trouble,” he said.
A no-deal Brexit and the new legislation could spark a trade war between the UK and EU with "punitive tariffs erected, sanctions, and fisticuffs in the Channel," Longworth acknowledged.
But he argued: "The UK response to that should be: If you go down that route [your] economy will be completely bust because we’ll withdraw the underpinning that the City of London provides.”
E
EddieM
To an extent this is true, but as I've said before, it's an unusable weapon in reality as it would take down the world economy, ours tagging along with the ride.
Which is why Barnier will be 'instructed' to wind his neck in.
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