Your foreign account from 2027: what the EBA guidelines on third-country branches mean for you

On 11 January 2027 the part of the European banking directive CRD VI that has been argued over for months takes effect. Banks outside the EU will then generally need an authorised branch in the client's country for deposits, loans and guarantees to clients in the EU. What such an authorisation looks like was set out by the European Banking Authority EBA in July. The document is dry, but it answers two questions that affect every account holder outside the EU: what must your bank do to be allowed to keep you, and how far does the argument carry that you approached it yourself?

The timetable in three dates

Directive (EU) 2024/1619 has three dates you should know. Under its Article 2, member states had to transpose it by 10 January 2026. The rules on third-country branches and the branch requirement of the new Article 21c apply from 11 January 2027. And grandfathering for old contracts is tied to 11 July 2026.

Many member states did not make the deadline. On 27 March 2026 the European Commission sent letters of formal notice to 22 member states because they had not notified it of full transposition, among them Sweden and Finland, as well as Germany, Austria, Spain, Portugal, Cyprus, Malta and Ireland. Denmark was not on the list. The states had two months to catch up.

For you as a client this is more than a footnote. A directive first binds the states; the bank is only bound by national law. In practice, though, banks outside the EU do not take their cue from the slowest member state. They convert their EU business as a whole.

What the EBA has set out

On 7 July 2026 the EBA published the final report with the guidelines on the authorisation of third-country branches, reference EBA/GL/2026/08. The guidelines are addressed to the national supervisors, in Sweden Finansinspektionen, in Denmark Finanstilsynet and in Finland the Financial Supervisory Authority, and to the banks from third countries that apply for a branch. They apply from 11 January 2027. Supervisors must tell the EBA within two months of the translations being published whether they comply.

What a bank from Zurich, Singapore or Dubai must submit to open a branch in an EU state, and what the supervisor checks, is considerable:

A business plan for three years, with financial and prudential projections in the normal case and in a stress scenario.

Capital endowment in an escrow account, at the latest before the authorisation takes effect. The minimum is set in Article 48e of the directive: for class 1 branches it is 2.5 percent of liabilities, at least €10 million; for class 2 it is 0.5 percent, at least €5 million.

At least two persons who actually run the branch, subject to a fit and proper assessment.

A written confirmation from the anti-money laundering supervisor, which the competent authority must obtain before granting the authorisation, and ideally an agreement with the supervisor in the bank's home country.

For retail clients the classification matters most. Under Article 48a a branch belongs in the stricter class 1 if, among other things, it holds retail deposits of more than €50 million or if these deposits make up at least 5 percent of its liabilities. A branch set up specifically for retail clients therefore quickly lands in the most expensive category.

No empty shell

One sentence in the report deserves particular attention. The EBA stresses that third-country branches may not be empty shells that merely collect business in order to book it with the parent. The branch must itself record and independently manage all assets and liabilities it books or originates in the member state.

For you that means: if your Swiss or Asian bank keeps serving you in future through an authorised branch in Sweden, Denmark or Finland, your account legally and for supervisory purposes sits there. It is then an account in the EU, under EU supervision, with everything that goes with it. The brand stays, the place of your money changes. On top of that, such an authorisation only applies to a single member state. Third-country branches have no European passport. If a branch nonetheless serves clients in other member states, the supervisor can, under the directive, require the bank to apply for full authorisation as a credit institution.

Own initiative: an exception, not a business model

The best-known exception to Article 21c is so-called reverse solicitation. Literally, the branch requirement does not apply if a client in the EU approaches the bank in the third country "at its own exclusive initiative". Many account holders hope the account could rest on this permanently. The text of the directive and the EBA say otherwise.

First, the exception is narrow. If the bank actively solicits a client, including through a closely linked undertaking or another person acting on its behalf, that expressly does not count as the client's own initiative under Article 21c(2). So the bank cannot rely on it if a representative approached you on its behalf.

Second, it only covers what you asked for. Under Article 21c(3) your request does not entitle the bank to offer you other categories of products or services, except those that are necessary for, or closely linked to, what you originally requested. Asking for an account does not automatically give you access to the bank's lending.

Third, a bank may not plan on it. Here the EBA makes a clear point. The business plan of a new branch may not contain projections for business that is expected to arise from clients' own initiative. The reasoning is simple: as long as the branch does not exist, no client can approach it on their own initiative. Supervisors are to check that the figures do not rest on such cross-border business with clients in other member states. For interpretation the EBA refers to the guidance of the securities supervisor ESMA on the same term for investment and crypto-asset services.

What follows is sober. A bank can keep serving an individual client who demonstrably came on their own. But it cannot build a retail business in the EU on that, and it bears the risk if its assessment was wrong. Most banks will therefore not work with the exception but with a clear line: branch, subsidiary in the EU, or goodbye to the client resident in the EU.

Grandfathering, read closely

Article 21c(5) says that, in order to preserve the acquired rights of clients under existing contracts, the branch requirement applies "without prejudice to existing contracts concluded before 11 July 2026".

Three things follow from this sentence. A contract concluded on 11 July 2026 or later is not covered. The protection relates to the contract, not to everything you might want to sign with the bank in future. And nowhere does it say that the bank must keep you. Ending the relationship by its own decision remains open to it, as to any provider, and many institutions will clean up their business with clients in the EU for cost reasons anyway.

So check the date of your account contract and keep it together with the correspondence from the time of opening. Anyone who concluded their contract before 11 July 2026 is in a better starting position than someone who only signed in the autumn.

What is not affected

Article 21c(4) exempts investment services. These include ancillary services such as accepting related deposits or granting loans, insofar as they are provided for those services. A custody account with a broker outside the EU therefore has to be assessed differently from a current account, even if some providers tighten their acceptance rules of their own accord.

Nor are banks in the European Economic Area affected. An institution in Liechtenstein serves clients in the EU through the European passport and needs no third-country branch. What an account there costs and who it pays off for is shown in opening a bank account in Liechtenstein.

What this means for readers in the Nordics and the UK

If you live in Sweden, Denmark or Finland, from January 2027 you are exactly the client for whom a bank outside the EU needs a branch in your country. An authorisation in Stockholm does not help a bank with clients in Copenhagen or Helsinki, and vice versa. The same goes for anyone who has already moved to Spain, Portugal, Cyprus or another member state.

If you live in Norway, you are not in the EU, but you are in the EEA. The EEA Joint Committee took CRD VI into the EEA Agreement on 20 March 2026; according to the EFTA database the decision enters into force once the constitutional requirements are fulfilled. Plan on the same rule as in the EU.

If you live in the UK, you are not a client in the EU in the eyes of the directive. For you Article 21c changes nothing about access to banks worldwide. Those affected are the third-country banks in their business with clients from the EU. What that means for a Swiss account without Swiss residence is set out in a Swiss account without residence from 2027.

What to do before January

1. Record the contract date. Keep the opening documents, the contract and the first correspondence, separately for each account. They show when the contract was concluded and who took the first step. Next year either can be the question that decides whether the bank keeps you.

2. Take letters from the bank seriously. If a letter arrives about residence, a transfer to a company in the EU or a termination, read carefully which company your account is to move to. That decides which law your money will sit under in future.

3. State your residence honestly. The question about your residence is a self-certification, not a formality. An address that does not match your actual residence solves no problem; it creates one.

4. Know the lasting route. Article 21c attaches to the client's residence, not their nationality. Anyone resident outside the EU does not fall under it. Why that is the sustainable route and which countries of residence have proved themselves is explained in the overview CRD VI: it comes down to where you live.

The same line holds for every route: an account abroad is legal, and your income stays taxable wherever the law says it is. If you want to know whether your existing account carries on after January and which combination of account and residence works in your case, talk to us in the free consultation.