As more and more British citizens look to move abroad, British banks are making strides to help citizens move abroad and maintain their business when their expats.
In recent weeks Lloyds Bank International has gone through rebrand since its split from TSB and NatWest International has recently rolled out further features to help their customers get a global view of their accounts via a new iPad app.
Similar to the ‘Global View’ option offered by HSBC Expat (though via their website only), NatWest International has rolled out its app for that British expatriates can manage their British and offshore accounts from one place via their ‘banking’ service. At the moment the app is only available for iPads though it will apparently be available for other devices soon. In a recent survey NatWest International found that 34% of British expats have an iPad and 38% use apps on their mobile devices to manage their personal finances.
Lloyds Bank International has also recently reported that it is helping on average 1000 new expatriates per month move abroad. In recent months it has massively pushed to gain market share as other banks such as HSBC and Barclays have scaled back their offerings in recent years.
However all expatriate banks are struggling to offer competitive rates of interest for savers, often having much lower rates than on offer to onshore savers. With interest rates stuck stubbornly low globally banks don’t feel required to offer even the bonus joining rates offered only a few years ago. The number of fixed rate deals has dropped a lot in the last few years along with the interest rates on offer.
With interest rates not due to climb in the UK until unemployment drops below 7% unfortunately expatriates banking offshore with British banks will struggle to see any decent interest rates on offer.
