This story on City A.M. highlights the plight of Britons living in the EU who, as a result of Brexit, are about to have their British bank accounts summarily closed.

The banks currently closing the bank accounts include Barclays, Halifax and Lloyd's. The reason for the closures is that, after Brexit, UK banks need special legal permissions to service EU residents, for each EU country individually; the grace period for gaining these permissions is about to close.

These banks must have decided that the bureaucratic overhead of gaining the necessary permissions exceeds the benefits of keeping those customers.

Not only is this another unexpected "benefit" of Brexit, but also a major inconvenience for the effected customers:

• Any UK based direct debits will be cancelled, meaning that service for which a direct debit is required, such as a UK mobile phone, will be cancelled. Direct debits are only possible within country; there is no equivalent international variable regular payment service.
• If they are drawing a UK pension (like me) and have been having it paid into their UK bank account (which I am not), they will need to contact the pension service to redirect the payments to an EU account; changing the account once payments have begun is difficult (normally not possible).

If they are operating a UK company, which some do, they will now have to have any invoices paid into an EU account; an inconvenience at both ends of the transactions, which may result in them losing customers.

If they are paying UK income tax, which many must, as well as paying tax in their country of residence, there are also new complications.

I find it bizarre that these banks are not prepared to do the paperwork to be able to service customers with addresses in the EU. My Swiss bank has no issues with me living in Germany (Switzerland is not in the EU, and needs the same permissions that the UK banks need), and my fiancée's US bank also has no problem with her living in Germany (although one of her American credit card providers does have a problem with it).

I used to think that the UK was more service oriented than much of continental Europe; it seems that I was wrong.