Blame Brexit for this as Barclays has apparently already implemented these changes 2 years ago. This makes sense why my credit card was not renewed as the plan all along was to cut me adrift. The letter sent on the 6th October has taken just on 3 weeks to arrive and that is speedy for SA's standards and I am lucky it arrived at all. This cuts down my time considerably as I am 3 weeks behind already.
This week I received a letter from my bank in the UK that they will be closing the account on the 6th October. This is the first I have heard about this and it gives me just short of 6 weeks to make alternative plans. Not ideal and there is still some confusion around this as to who is going to have their accounts shut down and this option can be reviewed. I phoned again tonight and the review option is not an option. Still not great as 6 weeks is not something you can sit on and wait for a decision. I would have appreciated more time to sort out an alternative bank as 2 months is not that long and the bank has dropped me in the dwang (slang for shite) with this news.
When I spoke to their call center earlier today I was informed that this was the first they had heard about this and there was nothing highlighted on my account. The account is active as this account is used by myself as a normal bank account like one does. I have a salary paid in there monthly from the UK based company and pay taxes etc so this may be classed as being very different from other expats. This information was wrong and found out the truth this evening after making the second phone call.
After speaking to my brother this afternoon he said this is a genuine "thing" and I need to phone the bank back and make 100% sure my account is not going to be closed. I have had this account for 31 years and had no intention of just shutting it down and will fight for this service.
The plan was always to open another account in Dubai later this year which only takes 2 days mainly this was going to be used for my crypto portfolio and possibly now will also become my main overseas bank very shortly.
So saying that even with this sudden urgency this is not so bad as over the next two days I will whittle down which bank i will select meeting the right criteria. I will do another post on the Dubai banking so anyone wanting to open a bank for their crypto can have a simple guide that needs to be followed.
I was looking at what other options i had with the UK banks suggestions as there are special expat banking facilities available. The catch is many require a £100K deposit to cover the £40 monthly bank service fee. Others require a guaranteed £75K deposit throughout the 12 month period so it could be your salary payments and not a lump sum. I do not earn that amount and kind of leaves me with far less options and Dubai is looking like it for now. I can recall Dubai had a minimum balance of 5000 Dirhams which is literally £600.
I feel fortunate that I had already done the research on Dubai so there is no need to panic as I still have 6 weeks to make this happen if this is required. There is no chance in hell that my UK money is coming to South Africa as the Rand is depreciating continuously and this would not be an option to even consider.
This feels like the loop holes that have always existed allowing people the freedom to move around even when they are still paying taxes where the bank account is held. I am sure this is something to do with banking regulations that have changed over the last few years and they are now banks are under pressure to close these accounts or face some type of financial penalties.
Whatever the reason this is not good news for the likes of myself and I will see if having a salary paid into my UK account gives me a fighting chance or not and now I know this is not. The timing of October sucks as I wanted this to tie into the crypto cycle possibly being November or December. The good part is Emirates has a special running from September for flights to Dubai being R10K return which is roughly £400 so maybe I will be flying sooner than later.