First Lloyds announced it was pulling out of the Spanish banking market and that it had sold its branches to Sabadell CAM, which upset a huge number of its clients. Now its Barclays turn, Barclays announced last week that it was pulling out of Spain, Portugal Italy and France.
Barclays have said that these branches will be moved to a non-core business entity; this will become part of their planned “bad bank" which will eventually sell or close all of the £115bn of non-core operations.
"Bad banks" have been used by a number of institutions since the global financial crisis as a way of ring-fencing risky loans and assets.
The carve-up will give greater prominence to Barclays’ retail operations in the UK, its Barclaycard credit card arm and its African business.
"This is a bold simplification of Barclays," said chief executive Antony Jenkins.
"We will be a focused international bank, operating only in areas where we have capability, scale and competitive advantage."
So for all of you who Bank with Barclays you now know what the bank thinks of its loyal expatriate banking customers, they are placing you in a bad bank, severing their responsibilities to you.
My advice to you is if you use Barclays for your day to day banking and are happy leave your account as it is and see if Barclays manage to sell, if they don´t manage to sell and decide to close their branches they will give you notice so you can find an alternative then.
If you have cash lump sums sitting with them or investments (that don´t carry hefty redemption penalties) now is the time to consider moving them.
It’s not just Barclays; in February this year Norwich and Peterborough Building Society announced it would close its Gibraltar branch at the end of this year.
In January this year HSBC Bank International (HBIB) completely closed down its Isle of Man and Guernsey centres for international clients who are based overseas.
The list seems to go on and on, the sad truth is as stated in a previous article I wrote in the RTN in February 2014 is:
“The main reason for this is that Banks just don´t want or need YOUR money. According to the British press banks and building societies have built up a £130billion war chest of dirt-cheap cash. These intuitions have been stockpiling money and paying little or no interest on it as a result for the foreseeable future they don´t need to pay struggling savers any extra interest or work to keep existing clients.”
If you have been or will be affected by the above, there is no time like now to act, if you are unsure as to what is available and what option is best for you just contact me by email christina.brady@blacktowerfm.com or call me on 658 892 330 , or contact Dave Diggle (Costa Blanca South) on 615607278, or email dave.diggle@blacktowerfm.com and we will be more than happy to run through the options with you. Our advice is free so why not take advantage of this.
The above information was correct at the time of preparation and does not constitute investment advice and you should seek advice from a professional adviser before embarking on any financial planning activity.
Blacktower Financial Management Ltd is authorised and regulated in the UK by the Financial Conduct Authority and is registered with both the DGS and CNMV. Blacktower Financial Management (Int) Ltd is licenced in Gibraltar by the Financial Services Commission (FSC) Licence No: 00805B and registered with the DGS in Spain.
Filed under: http://www.theleader.info/article/43738/
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