N26, opinions?

They've a Lithuanian e-money license in addition to their UK e-money license and have transferred their Irish accounts to their Lithuanian business. https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2020/1001/1168816-revolut-moving-irish-accounts-to-lithuania/
Crikey. I read that article - for which much thanks Paul M. - two IBAN changes! I think we'll sit on the current situation and see what happens (I'd be fairly hopeful Barclays and Santander have enough Irish customers and our regulations are sufficiently similar to the UK to make it worth their while to get authorised here?) but I will put in an enquiry with the UK state pensions people to find out whether they can pay in to Revolut.
 
All going well for me with switch over, but was speaking with a friend who has recently lost his job, and he says he can’t get his Job Seekers Paid into his N26 Bank account. He said when he entered the details in the application, it accepted the DE Iban, but it said “foreign” bank accounts are credited monthly. He called them and they sounded very unsure about non Irish Bank Accounts.

Strangely, when they collect their payment at the Post Office- they can’t lodge the funds to their N26 Debit card, and so, have to take the cash, or lodge to an Irish bank, sounds very strange to me.

I am wondering, if this bizarre restriction, also applies to Child Benefit
 
The link is behind a paywall. I


I was of the understanding it was business accounts that would be affected post Brexit and personal.accounts would not. Can anyone clarify?


Copied and pasted some of the article.


Despite the imminent end of the Brexit transition period, customers based in the Republic will be able to keep their bank accounts open with most UK lenders after end of the year.

With the Brexit transition period concluding at the end of December, some British banks have written to their customers across the EU informing them that their bank accounts will be cancelled. This is because rather than simply passporting their services across the EU and European Economic Area as was possible up until now, banks are finding that they have to apply for country-specific licences in order to provide certain services.

From January 1st future co-operation between the EU and UK will likely be based on “equivalence”, whereby each regime recognises the other. This is not as comprehensive as passporting.

A lack of a UK bank account can lead to problems for people who may have previously lived in the UK, and have a pension or mortgage going in/out of a UK bank account.




Lloyds Banking Group, which includes customers of both Halifax and [broken link removed], is understood to be closing retail accounts for some customers based in the EU. However, it’s understood that no Irish personal current account customer of the banking group will have their account closed.

Similarly, Barclays has written to expat customers in [broken link removed], [broken link removed], [broken link removed] and [broken link removed] to tell them that their savings and current accounts will have to be closed. However, a spokeswoman for the bank has confirmed that it has not asked Irish personal customers of Barclays to close their current accounts.

Should this change in the future, the spokeswoman said: “Where we make the decision to no longer offer products and services we are giving our customers as much notice as the local regulators allow, and where possible we are providing our customers with six months’ notice about the planned changes.”



Britian’s largest retail bank, HSBC, says that both UK expats and EU citizens living in the EU will still have access to a UK-based HSBC personal account as long as it shows activity at least once every 12 months.

The other Big Five UK banks – Ulster Bank parent NatWest (formerly Royal Bank of Scotland) and Santander – say they are monitoring the situation.
....... Digital payments start-up Revolut, for example, recently moved Irish accounts from its UK e-money licence to a similar licence in [broken link removed], from where it can passport into Ireland.
 
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