Barclays to close accounts of all British expats

cymruchris

friolento said:

FirstUser said:

Some of the friction is homemade, given that UK state pensiom and many domestic pension providers require a UK bank account and will not pay into an overseas account.

My impression is that this has got worse recently, and may increasingly catch out expats in retirement, who as a group do not have an effective lobby to reign it in. Try open a bank ac from overseas, it's become practically impossible unless you are a HNI (which also in the reported Barclay's case resolves the issue..).

You do not need a UK bank account to get your state pension paid. Very few if any domestic pension providers will not pay into a foreign bank account, either.

Whether it would be most sensible to have your pensions paid directly into a foreign account is a different question. For many, it will work out better to use something like Wise to make the transfer themselves. If you use that, you still don't need a UK bank account just for your pensions.

Although not strictly above board - there are those that claim their pension through a UK account as they say they're living in the UK, whereas they're really sunning themselves up having relocated to Thailand or somewhere similar. By still 'living' in the UK, the pensions go up every year - as soon as you officially move outside of a certain number of countries, your pension is frozen until you move back. So I imagine there'll be a number of retirees that have gone abroad, who when they get their pensions frozen as they no longer have a UK account, won't be happy. Although they are the rules - I think it's wrong to freeze a pension if you're retiring somewhere else - if you've paid the same as everyone else, you should get the same rises as everyone else. If you happen to be the other side of the world it shouldn't make a difference. But rules is rules.

[Deleted User]

MattMattMattUK said:

MDMD said:

As ever when it’s British people living aboard they are “expats” but when it’s the other way around they are “migrants”

Because from a British perspective they are expats, from the host country they are generally migrants. You will also notice a similar difference is terminology if you read the news in other countries, they differentiate between incoming migrants and their own citizens living abroad. 

No, it's is an English quasi-colonial term to describe people working overseas (usually within the empire) temporally.
Emigrants/immigrants is actually the correct terminology.

MattMattMattUK

[Deleted User] said:

MattMattMattUK said:

MDMD said:

As ever when it’s British people living aboard they are “expats” but when it’s the other way around they are “migrants”

Because from a British perspective they are expats, from the host country they are generally migrants. You will also notice a similar difference is terminology if you read the news in other countries, they differentiate between incoming migrants and their own citizens living abroad. 

No, it's is an English quasi-colonial term to describe people working overseas (usually within the empire) temporally.

That might be your definition, it is not the definition. Some people attempt to change the definition of certain words due to their political agenda, those attempting to change the definition of expatriate are one of them. 

[Deleted User] said:

Emigrants/immigrants is actually the correct terminology.

It is not "the correct terminology", expat(riate) is the correct terminology in specific usage, it is almost entirely used in the context of describing people who have emigrated from the country that is the perspective of the reader, to a third party country, as opposed to migrants/immigrants in general, other nations use similar terms for differentiation.

Expatriate: 'A person who lives outside their native country'
Migrant: 'A person who moves from one place to another in order to find work or better living conditions'
Immigrant: 'A person who comes to live permanently in a foreign country'

bristolian

cymruchris said:

Although not strictly above board - there are those that claim their pension through a UK account as they say they're living in the UK, whereas they're really sunning themselves up having relocated to Thailand or somewhere similar. By still 'living' in the UK, the pensions go up every year - as soon as you officially move outside of a certain number of countries, your pension is frozen until you move back. So I imagine there'll be a number of retirees that have gone abroad, who when they get their pensions frozen as they no longer have a UK account, won't be happy.

Is keeping your pension unfrozen really as easy as having it paid into a UK account? I'd have thought they would check your tax residence, but maybe HMRC are not allowed to share that information.