Fire and Brexit

Updated: 11th February 2021

fire.com and Brexit

Fire Post Brexit

The actions taken by Fire in 2019, namely becoming authorised as a UK Electronic Money Institution means there is no Brexit related impact on the 1st January 2021. EU customers will continue to contract with our Irish entity (“Fire-EU”) and UK customers will continue to contract with our UK entity (“FIre-UK”). There is no impact to the services provided to Fire’s EU and UK customers.

What is Brexit?

On the 29th March 2017, the United Kingdom (UK) notified the European Council of its intention to withdraw from the European Union (EU) pursuant to Article 50 of the Treaty of the European Union (TEU). While the UK’s withdrawal from the EU took place on the 31st January 2020, the EU and UK agreed a transition period. The transition period lasted up to the 31st December 2020, though the UK had left the EU, the UK continued to follow EU law and remained a part of the EU’s Single Market during the transition period. The EU–UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement was agreed on the 30th December 2020, this defines the EU-UK relationship post Brexit. No agreement on financial services was reached, from the 1st January 2021 the right for EU regulated firms to provide services to UK customers on a passporting basis, and vice-versa, came to am end.

What are the implications?

Prior to July 2019, Fire was regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland and traded in the UK under a passporting arrangement. We were exposed to the right to passport (to the UK) becoming no longer available, this has now become a reality. We developed an approach to minimise customer impact and ensure all services will remain available.

Fire’s approach

In order to ensure our ability to continue to provide services in the UK , we established a UK entity (“Fire-UK”). Fire-UK is authorised as an e-money institution by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (“FCA”).

Going forward, our EU customers will continue to be contracted with the current Irish/EU regulated entity (“Fire-EU”) while UK customers will be contracted with Fire-UK.

We developed solutions with our key third-party providers, so we can continue to provide the same range of services, while minimising impact to our existing customers.

What does this mean for customers?

NOTE: There is no impact to EU customers. There is no impact to UK customers who opened an account since the 14th October 2019.

Below is an overview of services and the changes, if any, that occurred. Please review the FAQs at the bottom of this page for further information:

EU Customers – there is no impact:

  • Euro BIC & IBANs – unchanged;
  • Sterling Sort Code & Account Numbers – unchanged;
  • Euro (SEPA) payments & Sterling (Faster Payments and BACS) – payments in and out of your Fire accounts will not change;
  • Mastercard debit card – continue to work as normal, you do not need to take any action;
  • Sterling direct debits – continue to be processed as they are today, you do not need to take any action.

UK Customers – signed up before the 25th February 2019:

  • Euro BIC & IBANs – new accounts issued on the 14th March 2019;
  • Sterling Sort Code & Account Numbers – new accounts issued on the 14th March 2019;
  • Euro (SEPA) payments & Sterling (Faster Payments and BACs) – payments in and out of your Fire accounts will not change;
  • Mastercard debit card – continue to work as normal. You do not need to take any action;
  • Sterling direct debits – continue to be processed as they are today, we will update service providers of the change to your account.

UK Customers – signed up after the 25th February 2019 – no impact:

  • Euro BIC & IBANs – unchanged;
  • Sterling Sort Code & Account Numbers – unchanged;
  • Euro (SEPA) payments & Sterling (Faster Payments and BACs) – payments in and out of your Fire accounts will not change;
  • Mastercard debit card – continue to work as normal. You do not need to take any action.
  • Sterling direct debits – continue to be processed as they are today, you do not need to take any action.

Summary

Fire is committed to ensuring that the impact to our customers is minimised. We’d welcome our customers to contact us if they have any questions on any aspect of the services currently used. We will continue to communicate regularly, and as new information becomes available.

FAQs – EU Customers

No, as your account details remain unchanged you will not need to do anything to continue using our service.

As an EU-based customer your services haven’t changed:

  • You will continue to contract with the Irish entity (“Fire-EU”);
  • Your account details will remain the same;
  • You can continue to make payments as you do today;
  • You can access the service as you do today.

Business customers – you can continue to access your account as you do today via firework online (https://business.fire.com) and firework mobile app (available from iOS and Google Play Stores)

Personal customers – you can continue to access your account as you do today via the fire personal app (available from iOS and Google Play Stores)

EU customers will continue to contract with Fire-EU.

If you have any additional questions, please email support@fire.com and we’ll respond as soon as possible. We aim to be as open and concise as possible and welcome the chance to assist.

FAQs – UK Customers

Customers signed up before 25th February 2019:

  • We encouraged you to provide your new account details to anyone who pays you as soon as possible;
  • fire.com acted on your behalf to notify direct debit originators of the change to your account. We recommend contacting service providers directly, especially if you had direct debit payments around the 14th March 2019;
  • All other services continue to operate as normal and no other change is required.

Customers signed up after 25th February 2019:

  • You do not need to take any action, all services continue to operate as normal.

As a UK based customer who signed up before the 25th February 2019:

  • Your contract with Fire-UK became effective on the 14th October 2019;
  • On the 14th March 2019 we issued new accounts and automatically transferred funds to the new accounts, historic transactional data is viewable on migrated accounts;
  • You can continue to make payments as normal;
  • You can continue to use your Mastercard debit card(s) as normal;
  • You can access the service as normal.

As a UK-customer who signed up after the 25th February 2019:

  • Your contract with Fire-UK became effective on the 14th October 2019
  • Your account details did not change;
  • You can continue to make payments as normal;
  • You can continue to use your Mastercard debit card(s) as normal;
  • You can access the service as normal.

Business customers – you can continue to access your account as you do today via firework online (https://business.fire.com) and firework mobile app (available from iOS and Google Play Stores)

Personal customers – you can continue to access your account as you do today via the fire personal app (available from iOS and Google Play Stores)

UK customers are contracted with Fire-EU until 14th October 2019, at which point their contract will transfer to Fire-UK. Please see our website footer for the constituent parts of the Fire-UK Framework Contract. As a customer, you may decide to close you fire.com account at any time.

To implement the changes necessary to operate the two entities and comply with all the relevant regulations we needed to issue you new account details. These new accounts replaced the existing accounts you had with us. Existing accounts have a Migrated status and all funds in the migrated account were automatically transferred to your newly created account.

We developed a temporary solution whereby payments made to migrated accounts were automatically redirected to the new accounts.

No, you can continue to use your Mastercard debit card as you do today. We will automatically link the card to the newly created accounts so there will be no disruption to your service. Your card number will not change until your card reaches its expiry date.

It will be possible to continue making direct debit payments on the newly issued sterling accounts. UK customers who signed up after the 25th February 2019 don’t need to take any action.

For UK customers who signed up before the 25th February 2019, we acted on your behalf and notified the direct debit originator of the account change, where direct debits were set up before the 14th March 2019. We recommend contacting the service provider directly to minimise disruption.

If you have any additional questions, please email support@fire.com and we’ll respond as soon as possible. We aim to be as open and concise as possible and welcome the chance to assist.

 

© 2015 – 2023 Fire Financial Services Limited trading as fire.com and Fire.
Fire Financial Services Limited (Fire-EU) is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland, Reference No: C58301. Registered address: Dogpatch Labs, The CHQ Building, Custom House Quay, Dublin 1, D01 Y6H7, Ireland. Incorporated in Dublin, Ireland, Registration No: 464819.
Fire Financial Services Limited (Fire-UK) is authorised as an Electronic Money Institution by the Financial Conduct Authority, Reference No: 900983. Registered Address: The Rise, 41 Luke Street, London, United Kingdom, EC2A 4DP. Incorporated in England and Wales, Registration No: 11549793.
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