kevntrace

My wife and I have both current (checking) and savings accounts with Barclays. When we were in the UK over the summer we popped in to the branch to order a debit/atm card for me (my wife already had one). Casually chatting with the staff member they mentioned accounts with US addresses were at risk of being closed. We promptly changed our address back to a UK address (we own a property over there) to avoid the issue. My wife was a long term Barclays employee before she married me and upped-sticks to the US.

Glasgow Girl

I have accounts with 2 UK banks (not Barclays), and have lived overseas for many years with no issues. No one has contacted me to say they are closing my accounts. However I would not be at all surprised to see most of the other banks following suit in due course. Once one type of financial institution starts doing this, others of the same type tend to fall in line over a period of years, mainly because they are all subject to the same regulations and risk. The US is particularly punitive to financial institutions not meeting the myriad of complex regulations and the penalties for institutions falling foul of these regulations are quite harsh, so it is just not worth the cost of compliance, or risk exposure. Give it 5 years or so, and we all might be having to make alternative arrangements. Getting a Wise account now is probably a good idea so that if/when this happens an alternative is already available.