Banking Regulation: The Gates Are Slowly Closing

Rising interest rates, record insolvencies, and permanent recession -- the looming economic crisis in the EU is taking shape.

Thomas Kolbe | September 2, 2026

Rising interest rates, record insolvencies, and permanent recession -- the looming economic crisis in the EU is taking shape. Brussels is responding by preparing the ground for capital controls. The regulators' latest target: European citizens' foreign bank accounts.

Starting January 11, 2027, trouble looms for EU citizens with foreign accounts. From that date, banks from third countries -- Switzerland, the UK, the US, or Singapore -- will be prohibited from offering so-called core banking services to European citizens. In essence, this covers three core functions: classic deposit-taking (checking, savings, or fixed-term accounts), lending, and the guarantee business. Banks wishing to continue offering these services to EU citizens will then be required to maintain a specifically licensed, fully supervised branch in exactly the member state where the customer resides.

Existing customers who held a foreign account as of July 11, 2026, may keep it, as long as the contractual basis is not fundamentally altered. Here lies a gray zone, an area of interpretive discretion for European authorities -- one that will almost certainly be used in the future to pull these customers back inside the EU's walls as well.

Officially, this new EU initiative is called Directive 2024/1619, better known as CRD VI -- the sixth Capital Requirements Directive. It was adopted through the........

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