Open Bank Account Anywhere in Europe

Open Bank Account Anywhere in Europe.

The European Union is to remove existing red tape and regulation to allow residents of any member European state resident to open a bank account in another member state.

In short, if you want a bank account in Greece, you can open one.

Difficult to open accounts now. Why?

Each member state has its own financial services regulator and local regulations usually restrict the marketing of financial products to residents of that country. For example, pension companies in the UK cannot market a UK pension scheme to a resident of Spain.

With bank accounts, the usual process is that you have to prove an address in the member country and if you move overseas, eventually your bank may close your account.

Is it a good thing?

It makes sense to bring down further the barriers across Europe for banking. Initially, this will only be for a basic bank account but we see it as a natural progression to widen European banking facilities.

By allowing European banks into the UK and vice versa, it will promote competition on bank charges, it will enable European banks to interact with each other more easily. It will also allow Tax authorities perhaps easier access to track clients holding deposits in various countries.

The downside risk is that ‘at risk’ banking sectors such as the Cypriot and Greek banks may come under increasing pressure if investors create a run on a bank and move outside the host nation.

It also presents some difficulty to identify clients correctly, so an increased risk of money laundering or non-disclosure of interest for tax purposes.

For Britain, we actually see this as a potential threat to the UK dominance of the Banking sector across the Globe. UK banks will need to improve services to compete with a whole flurry of EU banks who will no doubt market services into the UK.

In addition, non EU banks looking to enter the EU market may now not look at the UK as a preferred method of entry given that other EU host nations will have the same access.

Competition will rise and opportunities for some larger non UK banking groups will open.

For the man on the street, knowing that you can simply go to ‘whole in the wall’ with your basic Italian account to withdrawmoney when in Italy without being excessively charged by you UK bankers for the withdrawalwill no doubt appeal.