Over 4 years on from the referendum, Brexit is almost here. The deadline was on the 31st December 2020 so we’ve put together this handy guide to outline any impact Britain’s exit from the European Union will have on WeSwappers and their accounts.
If you want to keep up to date with the Government’s latest advice on travel after Brexit, you can check out this page.
If your primary address is in the UK, Brexit will not impact your WeSwap account. Your account will remain open and your card will continue to work everywhere it did before.
However, we have had to make the tough decision to close all non-UK resident applications and accounts from midnight 31 December 2020. From this date all applications and accounts will be closed. If your primary address is not in the UK and you have a WeSwap Prepaid Mastercard©, it will no longer work and you’ll be unable to load, swap, spend or replace your card. There is more information on this decision below, but you can also check out our dedicated Q&A here.
Our Issuing Partner, IDT Financial Services Limited, had begun a licensing process within the EU/EEA and it was thought that the license would be ready in time. Unfortunately, however, this hasn’t been the case.
Yes. As per our Terms & Conditions, we provide 2 calendar months before any change of terms or account termination. We alerted all impacted WeSwappers on 31 October 2020 and the changes will come into effect from midnight 31 December 2020.
If you still have money on your WeSwap card, you can keep spending right up until 11:59pm on 31 December 2020. Your card will continue to work both at home and abroad, online, or for ATM withdrawals.
If your card is expired, lost or you don’t want to spend the money on your card, you can request a refund by getting in touch with us (more info on that below).
If you have funds in another currency, we’ll swap it for you for free and refund it in the currency you originally loaded your account with.
Refunds are free of charge for up to 12 months but you’ll be charged a £5 fee if you request a refund more than one year after we close your account.
You can get a full refund for up to 6 years, after that you may lose your funds. To arrange a free refund back to your original bank account please view our account closure Q&A here or email IDT Financial Services at [email protected] from your registered WeSwap email address.
Please provide IDT the following details:
Refunds are free of charge for up to 12 months but you’ll be charged a £5 fee if you request a refund more than one year after we close your account.
If your funds are not in your home currency, we’ll swap them back using the XE.com exchange rate on the day we process your refund.
You cannot. Per our promotional T&Cs, these funds are non-refundable.
You can continue loading your card up until 15 December 2020. Just please note we’re currently only accepting loads via Bank Transfer and these take 3-5 working days for funds to arrive into your account.
Once you’ve spent the money on your card, and certainly after 31 December 2020, please cut your card through the magnetic stripe as well as the chip and dispose of it in a responsible manner.
As a regulated financial product, we’re subject to strict legal requirements when it comes to what data we must retain following the closure of an account or cancelling of an application.
We’re legally required to hold your information for 5 years following the date of the closure of your account in order to comply with our legal anti-money laundering obligations. This is set out in section 8 of our Privacy Policy. Your information will be stored securely and only accessed should it be required to fulfill a legal obligation (e.g. a request is made from one of our regulators or law enforcement).
We’ll make sure that you are unsubscribed from any future marketing emails too.
Fingers crossed. Our hope is that we’ll be able to resume services to our non UK residents in the future. We’ll make an announcement as soon as we have a clearer idea of when that will be.
