Fineco Bank pulling out of the UK

SouthLondonUser

"They aren't a bank anyone could really recommend as being MSE."

It depends on your needs. As a main or even only secondary UK bank account, I don't think it has ever made much sense.

For a multicurrency account and multicurrency trading, I think it was very good value.

Marchitiello

What strange discussion is taking place but as the very original poster on Fineco UK on this website as well someone that for work has been dealing with the impact of Brexit on UK Businesses trading heavily with the EU , I would like to offer some clarity about the timeline and the final decision.

Fineco UK launched officially in May 2017, less than a year after the Brexit referendum, but the plans for this launch would have been in play for way over a year. An important point is that at the time they were a full subsidiary of UniCredit, one of Europe biggest banks, and could therefore having planned to exploit some of UniCredit international operations.

It is easy to forget now that the Political “campaigns” in favour of Brexit never offered a clear of view of what that would mean exactly for people, jobs, business etc.. The debate offered different approaches, like the Norway or Switzerland agreement, and statements like “the EU will surely agree with whatever we want to implement, as they will not want to limit trade with us” and other statements of similar effects that prove to be simply untrue and misleading.

This continued really until the final agreement was signed on the 24th January 2020, which only became effective on 01/01/2021.

For those mentioning N26, they started offering accounts in the UK in 2018 but had promised this for years, way before Brexit (I was monitoring this as their EU World Elite MasterCard offered some premium benefits and was hoping for the same to be available to Uk residents) but they announced the withdrawal from the UK in early February 2020, days after the formal agreement was signed.

So, whilst they may have explored different possible outcomes in all this time, it was not until January 2020 that Fineco UK
and similar businesses really knew what they had to deal with. Whilst N26 immediately decided to exit, Fineco started the process of gaining a UK banking license but in doing so they apparently realised what it actually meant (needing to set up a full UK operation and not being able to leverage UniCredit existing presence), it ultimately meant that this was not viable, this is quite clear and reflect their official statement 100% (obviously the Italian based operational model could be profitable even for only 23k customers, but having to set up a full UK operation, would not). 

For me that I used this account to mainly exchange currencies and send it to other Euro accounts that offered faster payments, the bottom line, is that as I received the comms on Friday,  I checked once again what would be the net exchanged amount if I had to swap £10k in EUR with Wise, HSBC Global Account and Fineco, and Fineco was once again offering the best net amount in EUR, so I will definitely be at loss here going forward. 

SouthLondonUser

" I checked once again what would be the net exchanged amount if I had to swap £10k in EUR with Wise, HSBC Global Account and Fineco, and Fineco was once again offering the best net amount in EUR, so I will definitely be at loss here going forward."

Can you quantify for us, please? I think this is a crucial piece of information that would be useful for everyone, regardless of political opinions.

Marchitiello

SouthLondonUser said:

" I checked once again what would be the net exchanged amount if I had to swap £10k in EUR with Wise, HSBC Global Account and Fineco, and Fineco was once again offering the best net amount in EUR, so I will definitely be at loss here going forward."

Can you quantify for us, please? I think this is a crucial piece of information that would be useful for everyone, regardless of political opinions.

My comment was not political at all, but I feel that people can conveniently forget those campaign messages and statement on TV debates (aside of the NHS bus), that now think it was a clear cut outcome being offered, which never was. I can tell you for a fact that a UK business I have been involved with recently, lost £double digits millions  in revenues with the EU because of Brexit introduced regulation, and are now spending few millions in setting up a workaround in hope to progressively recover that… 

In any case, the difference in net exchanged amount was around £8 better then wise and around £35 better then HSBC GMA..

not massive differences but if you do (as I do) several such transactions throughout the year, than it all adds up, leaving aside the fact that you could then leave the amount for a bit in Fineco fully protected and you do not get the same with Wise

PloughmansLunch

SouthLondonUser said:

PloughmansLunch said:

Some Spanish banks and utilities companies refuse to accept payments and direct debits originating from banks with UK IBANs (or sometimes won’t even deal with non-ESxx IBANs), even though under EU rules they shouldn’t be allowed to discriminate this way.

So is your issue with Wise that it doesn't allow direct debits, or that it's not a real bank? As others have pointed out (thanks! I didn't know) you can choose to park your Wise liquidity in some kind of BlackRock money market funds.

Wise supposedly offers EUR direct debits but I have never tried

I normally keep a few €k sitting for bills for the year and top up whenever needed, and as mentioned above Fineco also usually have a very good exchange rate. The site and app are a little clunky and transfers can be slow, but I have no problem factoring this in.

I do have Wise and Revolut accounts but haven’t really used either in preference to free banking and transfers with Fineco. It may be undeserved but I also don’t fully trust Wise and Revolut for holding Euros over a long period of time, and I’d rather not faff around with money market funds.

Someone on this board mentioned a free account (unusual in Spain) with Cajamar bank that I will probably open at some point, but it needs to be opened in person for non-residents, and also requires a special certificate from the police so losing Fineco will be a real nuisance for me. 

Lions_89

Oh dear we seem to have gone down the rabbit hole. 

In regards to N26, I can only repeat that even financial experts did not buy their claim that Brexit was the cause of leaving the UK. And several posters have stated it cannot be denied that Brexit had impact on such services, so I am not sure how anything has been "forgotten".

But I will not go any further as the debate has been done to death.

friolento

Section62 said:

friolento said:

...

The additional costs may well have rendered the business unviable. The root cause still remains Brexit - even if people feel uncomfortable about this truth, and would rather suppress the mention of it.

This is not a politial statement from me, merely an observation of what is going on around us.

An observation which appears to be made with at least one eye firmly closed.

Those of us questioning Fineco's claims are not saying that Brexit had noting to do with it, merely that a claim by a bank which didn't arrive until after the UK had decided to leave the UK is making it difficult to believe that there isn't more to do with this decision than just the additional costs post-Brexit.

You appear only willing to believe there is one root cause.  Those with an alternate point of view are suggesting multiple root causes appear to be involved in this decision - not least the half-hearted attempt to break into a market which the CEO himself said would "not be a Sunday stroll".

The thing about evidence and facts is you have to look at all of them.  Not just pick the ones which suit the narrative.  The latter is when "facts" get 'political'.

You totally misunderstood what I said. I did not comment on the likely reasons for Fineco's decisio to shut shop in the UK. I simply stated the fact that since Brexit it is more costly for EU banks to operate in the UK, and for UK banks to operate in the EU. As I said, nothing political in stating this, as it is the truth.

PosterBoy77

Lions_89 said:

N26 used the same excuse, in reality I suspect their UK business was not viable. Brexit may have threw a spanner in the works but it wasn't the fundamental cause. 

Triodos obtained a UK license. 

I have more sympathy with N26 as their decision was made much closer to the UK leaving the EU. In Fineco's case it really does seem like an excuse as their management would have known the ins and outs of the post-Brexit rules and if they knew they were too complex and expensive they would have have closed their UK operation down before making a big marketing push for their stocks and shares ISA offering over the last couple of years. I suspect they have just not been successful enough with their offering.

Marchitiello

mikael said:

Lions_89 said:

N26 used the same excuse, in reality I suspect their UK business was not viable. Brexit may have threw a spanner in the works but it wasn't the fundamental cause. 

Triodos obtained a UK license. 

I have more sympathy with N26 as their decision was made much closer to the UK leaving the EU. In Fineco's case it really does seem like an excuse as their management would have known the ins and outs of the post-Brexit rules and if they knew they were too complex and expensive they would have have closed their UK operation down before making a big marketing push for their stocks and shares ISA offering over the last couple of years. I suspect they have just not been successful enough with their offering.

Sure, not successful enough to justify a full UK based operation, and they were likely starting from a Stronger customer base that N26 had on the 24th January 2020, but also the application process is likely not straight forward as expected initially, I believe Revolut applied for a UK banking license and it still chasing it years later… 

gt94sss2

Marchitiello said:

mikael said:

Lions_89 said:

N26 used the same excuse, in reality I suspect their UK business was not viable. Brexit may have threw a spanner in the works but it wasn't the fundamental cause. 

Triodos obtained a UK license. 

I have more sympathy with N26 as their decision was made much closer to the UK leaving the EU. In Fineco's case it really does seem like an excuse as their management would have known the ins and outs of the post-Brexit rules and if they knew they were too complex and expensive they would have have closed their UK operation down before making a big marketing push for their stocks and shares ISA offering over the last couple of years. I suspect they have just not been successful enough with their offering.

Sure, not successful enough to justify a full UK based operation, and they were likely starting from a Stronger customer base that N26 had on the 24th January 2020, but also the application process is likely not straight forward as expected initially, I believe Revolut applied for a UK banking license and it still chasing it years later… 

Not sure Revolut is a good comparison since they have had well documented problems with internal controls/audits and are involved in things like crypto.

Comparing Fineco and N26 - I have more sympathy for Fineco - at least they tried to break into the UK market (however poorly).

N26 just totally botched their launch and never recovered