Barclays UK closing expat accounts ?

[Wales4rugbyWC23]

Hi banders

HSBC accounts opened to transfer our monies from Barclays.
Paying in our UK Pensions.
Paying out a couple of direct debits.
Seems important to have a UK account when transferring monies to NS & I .
To use on occasion when we are in the UK.

Del

What was the process like for opening Ns & I account?

[Del]

Hi Wales4rugbyWC19

With regards to NS & I, we had already opened a Premium Bond online each a few years ago with a small amount in the UK.

So it was a just a change of address from UK to Japan, declare that we are resident for tax here and input My Number Card No. ( Online )

We’ve just opened Bond accounts online here in Japan, and received email verification that applications were accepted ( next day ). Deposits must be from a UK Bank account.

As NS & I now use 2FA for account verification, you receive either a text or phone call for verification, in our case to our UK mobile phones.
As the phone call is chargeable ( mobile ) we also added our Japanese landline no for the 2FA verification. When adding an additional tel / mob no for 2FA this has to be done via a phone call to NS & I, and the security questions are quite strict.

Hope this helps.

Del

[Beaglehound]

Hi Wales4rugbyWC19

With regards to NS & I, we had already opened a Premium Bond online each a few years ago with a small amount in the UK.

So it was a just a change of address from UK to Japan, declare that we are resident for tax here and input My Number Card No. ( Online )

We’ve just opened Bond accounts online here in Japan, and received email verification that applications were accepted ( next day ). Deposits must be from a UK Bank account.

As NS & I now use 2FA for account verification, you receive either a text or phone call for verification, in our case to our UK mobile phones.
As the phone call is chargeable ( mobile ) we also added our Japanese landline no for the 2FA verification. When adding an additional tel / mob no for 2FA this has to be done via a phone call to NS & I, and the security questions are quite strict.

Hope this helps.

Del

That is encouraging enough to have motivated me to try this process, or a variant thereof. I also have premium bonds and already changed my address with them to here (by post), but don’t have an online account. So I tried to register but it wouldn’t let me do it online; I have to print out form and send by post. So I am going to do that, hoping that once the online account is up and running I can open some of these juicy bonds.

[Tkydon]

Premium Bonds do not pay interest. 0%.

https://www.nsandi.com/products/premium-bonds
"With Premium Bonds, there is no interest earned. Instead the interest rate funds a monthly prize draw for tax-free prizes. Remember that inflation can reduce the true value of your money over time."

They are basically principle guaranteed Lottery Tickets. The Premium Bond system pays out prizes to the value of 4.00% of assets (annual prize fund rate) from the August 2023 prize draw, but your chance of winning is 22,000 to 1 (for every £1 Bond) from the August 2023 prize draw...
You are only guaranteed to get your money back.

Whilst the prizes may be tax free in the UK, they will not be tax free in Japan if you have lived here for more than 5 years in the last 10 years or if you have lived here for less than 5 years in the last 10 years, if you remit the funds to Japan

Further, whilst there is no GBP gain on the principle, there may be a taxable JPY gain if the JPY further weakens against the GBP, or there may be a significant JPY loss if the JPY strengthens against the GBP. They are not protected against UK Inflation.

"Not for you if …
You want a regular income
You're looking for guaranteed returns
You're concerned about inflation
You want to save jointly with someone else"

[Beaglehound]

Yes, I am looking to open one of their fixed term savings accounts, which they also call bonds.

[Del]

Final pieces to the puzzle with regards to Barclays closing our ( wife & I ) bank accounts because we have non UK resident address ( Japan ).

Having opened UK HSBC accounts with our Japanese address, we have at last received our HSBC Bank cards here in Japan. DIrect debits transferred and pension payments moved to HSBC. Finally savings moved to UK NS & I So we are all set; goodbye Barclays after 40+ years

As a side note UK NS & I ( UK National Savings & Investment ) currently have a 1 yr fixed Guaranteed Income Bond available at 5% gross 5.12%AER…… not bad

Del

[RetroNewbie]

Hmm. My to-do list for this week included contacting Barclays to update the old UK address to my Japanese one.
So it sounds like that might be tricky.

..

I do have a Wise account, although I haven't really used it so far, but they seem like the *only* option, and they aren't a real bank.

Good luck on the first one. I’d love to hear how you get on.
I only use my account to pay Class 2 pension by direct debit. The thought of contacting HRMC to change that makes my heart race. (And not in a romantic way.).

What banking service do you need that WISE can’t provide? I have an account and it provides a UK sort code and account number to receive (and make) domestic transfers in the UK. They also claim to handle direct debits.
And you can get a physical debit card.

It's been a while, but I wanted to report back.
I talked to Barclays customer support on the phone and they changed my address to japan and sent me a new authenticator card. They were very friendly and helpful and it all seemed to go without a hitch.
Unfortunately, the same day the authenticator card arrived, another letter from them did saying that I need to close my account by Jan 2024 because I'm living overseas.

I wasn't really using it, so it's no big deal, as long as all my other accounts in the UK don't get closed too.

I might see if I can open up an Interactive Brokers account and put it all in there. It's getting almost zero interest anyway.

[Moneymatters]

Hmm. My to-do list for this week included contacting Barclays to update the old UK address to my Japanese one.
So it sounds like that might be tricky.

..

Good luck on the first one. I’d love to hear how you get on.

It's been a while, but I wanted to report back.
I talked to Barclays customer support on the phone and they changed my address to japan and sent me a new authenticator card. They were very friendly and helpful and it all seemed to go without a hitch.
Unfortunately, the same day the authenticator card arrived, another letter from them did saying that I need to close my account by Jan 2024 because I'm living overseas.

…

Thanks for reporting back. And taking one for the team!
Oh. And if you aren’t using that card reader in Jan I’ll take it off your hands..

[beanhead]

This seems to be happening at Barclays. In the news again recently .

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/barclays ... 54082.html

[TokyoWart]

This seems to be happening at Barclays. In the news again recently .

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/barclays ... 54082.html

The most interesting line in that article for me was:

"This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor."

I know that AI already generates many/most earnings announcement news articles but this seemed like an unusual topic for an AI ghostwriter.