Lloyds bank close UK citizens account EUs in EU

London7766551

colsten said:

Getting your pension paid regularly to wherever you live is no problem. That is not the same as transferring a pension to the country in which you live. The pension fund and/or the responsibility to pay you regularly rests with the UK pension provider  / with the DWP.

Having your UK pension(s) paid to a non-UK account is usually a terrible idea, too, as this would be done using bank exchange rates and charges. You can do this significantly cheaper if you arrange the transfer yourself, through - for example - Starling Bank.

Can you open a Starling Bank account from the EU? I assume a rate must be paid if a person were to transfer the money from Ulster Bank to a EU account.

London7766551

lr1277 said:

Sorry to go slightly off topic but....
For DorisMC, I am not sure it is a good idea to transfer the pension to the Netherlands without doing some checking first.
I think if the pensioner is receiving their money outside the UK, then when the pension is increased in the UK, that increase is not necessarily passed onto pensioners receiving their pension outside the UK. Whilst the UK was in the EU, that rule didn’t apply, but now... 
Worth checking.

The UK gov website states there is an agreement with the Netherlands as such the state pension will increase. 

colsten

lr1277 said:

Sorry to go slightly off topic but....
For DorisMC, I am not sure it is a good idea to transfer the pension to the Netherlands without doing some checking first.
I think if the pensioner is receiving their money outside the UK, then when the pension is increased in the UK, that increase is not necessarily passed onto pensioners receiving their pension outside the UK. Whilst the UK was in the EU, that rule didn’t apply, but now... 
Worth checking.

The question whether annual increases get paid only arises for state pensions. It is impossible to transfer state pensions to another country.

• Anyone who is covered by the Withdrawal Agreement has their annual state pension increases guaranteed for life.
• Anyone living in an EU 27 country by 31/12/2020 is covered by the Withdrawal Agreement (but only in the country they reside in by that date)
• As @DorisMC already lives in the Netherlands, and assuming she wants to continue living there, annual increases to her SP are therefore not an issue to her - she gets the same %age increase as a UK pensioner living in the UK.

You are right, though, that people who retire to an EU 27 country after 31/12/2020 (or those covered by the Withdrawal Agreement who want to change country) might have an issue on their hands. Just one of many issues, though, as it will no longer be so dead easy to retire to wherever in Europe you like. I think it's called #BrexitDividend or some such.

kaMelo

colsten said:

lr1277 said:

Sorry to go slightly off topic but....
For DorisMC, I am not sure it is a good idea to transfer the pension to the Netherlands without doing some checking first.
I think if the pensioner is receiving their money outside the UK, then when the pension is increased in the UK, that increase is not necessarily passed onto pensioners receiving their pension outside the UK. Whilst the UK was in the EU, that rule didn’t apply, but now... 
Worth checking.

The question whether annual increases get paid only arises for state pensions. It is impossible to transfer state pensions to another country.

• Anyone who is covered by the Withdrawal Agreement has their annual state pension increases guaranteed for life.
• Anyone living in an EU 27 country by 31/12/2020 is covered by the Withdrawal Agreement (but only in the country they reside in by that date)
• As @DorisMC already lives in the Netherlands, and assuming she wants to continue living there, annual increases to her SP are therefore not an issue to her - she gets the same %age increase as a UK pensioner living in the UK.

You are right, though, that people who retire to an EU 27 country after 31/12/2020 (or those covered by the Withdrawal Agreement who want to change country) might have an issue on their hands. Just one of many issues, though, as it will no longer be so dead easy to retire to wherever in Europe you like. I think it's called #BrexitDividend or some such.

The EU was a neat whipping post when British politicians had difficult questions to answer, now Brexit has taken that mantle.

The reality is that UK state pension increases when living abroad are nothing whatsoever to do with the EU. A UK pensioner, for example, living in the USA, Turkey or Israel (and many more) receives annual state pension increases, clearly they are not countries within the EU. What matters is whether there is a bilateral agreement on social services between the UK and another country.  It's nothing to do with the EU at all

colsten

kaMelo said:

colsten said:

lr1277 said:

Sorry to go slightly off topic but....
For DorisMC, I am not sure it is a good idea to transfer the pension to the Netherlands without doing some checking first.
I think if the pensioner is receiving their money outside the UK, then when the pension is increased in the UK, that increase is not necessarily passed onto pensioners receiving their pension outside the UK. Whilst the UK was in the EU, that rule didn’t apply, but now... 
Worth checking.

The question whether annual increases get paid only arises for state pensions. It is impossible to transfer state pensions to another country.

• Anyone who is covered by the Withdrawal Agreement has their annual state pension increases guaranteed for life.
• Anyone living in an EU 27 country by 31/12/2020 is covered by the Withdrawal Agreement (but only in the country they reside in by that date)
• As @DorisMC already lives in the Netherlands, and assuming she wants to continue living there, annual increases to her SP are therefore not an issue to her - she gets the same %age increase as a UK pensioner living in the UK.

You are right, though, that people who retire to an EU 27 country after 31/12/2020 (or those covered by the Withdrawal Agreement who want to change country) might have an issue on their hands. Just one of many issues, though, as it will no longer be so dead easy to retire to wherever in Europe you like. I think it's called #BrexitDividend or some such.

The EU was a neat whipping post when British politicians had difficult questions to answer, now Brexit has taken that mantle.

The reality is that UK state pension increases when living abroad are nothing whatsoever to do with the EU. A UK pensioner, for example, living in the USA, Turkey or Israel (and many more) receives annual state pension increases, clearly they are not countries within the EU. What matters is whether there is a bilateral agreement on social services between the UK and another country.  It's nothing to do with the EU at all

I almost totally agree. It has always been in the UK's power how much state pension they pay to whom. The EU never had any direct or indirect role in this.

However, as part of the Withdrawal Agreement, certain rights have been agreed for people who reside in either the EU 27 or in the UK by 31/12/2020. These people are known as "covered by the Withdrawal Agreement". These rights include health care (e.g. UK will continue to pay the health insurance for Brits living e.g. in the Costas), and also the right to SP increase. It's probably cheaper for the UK to make those payments than having hundreds of thousands of pensioners moving back to the UK because they could no longer afford to live abroad.

Eurobazz

I received two letters from Lloyds Bank on 8 September informing me about account closures for both accounts between 2 November and 31 December.  I managed to speak to their dedicated customer service personnel very early on 9 September and they informed me that Lloyds had not applied for a post-Brexit banking licence for only two EU countries, namely Netherlands and Slovakia.  I was able to solve the problem over the phone by changing my address from the Netherlands to one in the UK.  It is a shame this is happening.  I have been a Lloyds Bank customer for about 35 years and I don't want to go through the hassle of looking for a UK bank that will allow residents of the Netherlands to have a GBP account.

colsten

Eurobazz said:

 I don't want to go through the hassle of looking for a UK bank that will allow residents of the Netherlands to have a GBP account.

More likely than not, Ulster Bank would be very happy to provide any EU residents with a full GBP current account facility https://digital.ulsterbank.co.uk/personal/current-accounts/eu-residents-hub.html

masmith1

It's nothing to do with Brexit, customers residing in the EU don't expect EU rules to be imposed on their UK bank acounts.. They just want to continue with UK rules. Lloyds is just using it as an excuse to offload unprofitable customer groups, selected by addressl Hardly surprising, Lloyds is majority-owned by the UK Govt..

Thrugelmir

masmith1 said:

It's nothing to do with Brexit, customers residing in the EU don't expect EU rules to be imposed on their UK bank acounts.. They just want to continue with UK rules. Lloyds is just using it as an excuse to offload unprofitable customer groups, selected by addressl Hardly surprising, Lloyds is majority-owned by the UK Govt..

Did. Now just RBS left. 

ffacoffipawb

masmith1 said:

It's nothing to do with Brexit, customers residing in the EU don't expect EU rules to be imposed on their UK bank acounts.. They just want to continue with UK rules. Lloyds is just using it as an excuse to offload unprofitable customer groups, selected by addressl Hardly surprising, Lloyds is majority-owned by the UK Govt..

Not true.

The UK Government sold the last shares it held in Lloyds in May 2017. It never held more than 43% of the shares.