Thousands of British expats resident in EU countries like France and Spain have had their banks accounts closed. Customers of Barclays Bank living in France are among the latest to receive notification their accounts must be shutdown because of red rape linked to Brexit.
Although the UK departure from the EU has not officially been blamed for the banking bombshell, there is no doubt that the move has influenced the decision. Financial institutions in the UK previously used the EU’s passporting system to help provide services to expat clients who retained their UK accounts, but this is no longer possible.
'Passporting' enables UK banks to provide services to customers in other states in the European Economic Area (EEA) – the European Union plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway – without having to get direct authorisation in those states. However, UK banks now need to have separate authorisation in every EEA country where it operates.
