So people are starting to realise that they can't actually trust the organisations that control their money. I wonder if this sort of thing will raise awareness about who we actually trust, and whether we should be trusting anyone at all.
If Barclays is anything like my local banks, it sucks, but chances are they're not doing this just to spite their customers.
Since that job I carry 1000 euros in cash in my wallet, and never again shall I have a single bank account again. I managed to have a third account in a separate country last year under a not-identical name (if you're married in the EU chances are you have the right to use any combination of yours and your spouses names, including both of them with or without a dash in between).
But the government rules do not require the bank to continue to lock up the money even after evidence of legitimacy is provided or to make further errors that prevent the customer from demonstrating the legitimacy in the required way even if they want to. Both of those things appear to have happened here.
Most people earn far less, and only ever transfer such large amounts when they buy a car.
E.g. in the UK, assuming thats 10k of income before tax would place you in the 97th percentile [1]. Even half that would place you in the 90th percentile.
Most people never transfer amounts higher than that other than as part of e.g. a house or car purchase.
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/percentile-points-f...
I disagreed with the conclusion that this means tracking basically everyone, and I gave evidence of this not being the case for the UK, where if your gross income before tax is even half that, it puts you in the 90th percentile of earners.
Even 1/3 of that would place you in the 77th percentile. I've never been close to taking out less than 1/3 of what I invoice. But just in case:
The 50th percentile for the UK is GBP 21k/year, or a bit over 24k Euro/year according to the source I provided.
It's not uncommon for these folks to make huge cash deposits to buy a car or whatever.
In the US, the $10,000 threshold is a formal number that requires a specific form. $5,000 transactions are reported, and a bank official can flag any transaction. Former NY governor Spitzer was caught patronizing escorts when a bank official flagged a smaller transaction as a potential "structuring" attempt.
If you're poor, you're probably not stashing tens of thousands in cash. I bet the percentage of people who both qualify as poor and have $10K in cash on hand is low single digits.
> It's not uncommon for these folks to make huge cash deposits to buy a car or whatever.
Why would you deposit $10K to buy a car instead of carrying your cash to the car dealer? Also, why are you buying a car that costs >$10K if you're poor?
Second, the law gives them power without a recourse. This is because the law makes them responsible in case one of their customers were laundering money.
The hosting company comparison doesn't fit, you can publish a myriad of content and quickly to a host, checking all of it, against laws for explicit content and copyright alone would be a mammoth task. Banks only offer financial services they themselves choose to provide. In essence they only provide FTP and the only file you can FTP is a number (to put it simply).
Banks need regulating (is there anyone alive in this day and age who doubts this?), not just on an international level, but locally and for the 'little man' too. My own experience this last year involved making a formal complaint to the consumer financial complaints body where I live about an error made by the bank, freely admitted to by the bank, and the result was "suck it up", including the financial cost. Banking is in a poor state, having lost the faith of the public.
I said nothing of the sort.
> overreaching laws just to ensure Govts revenue
Follow the link from my previous post, are you suggesting that laundering the profits from trade in opiates and helping fund terrorism is better than some laws that require banks to be accountable for their actions? Those money laundering transactions are processed for a fee. HSBC made money from people suffering and from people dying/being killed.
It looks to me as though in the case of Mohammad Rahman that the banks have been given a procedure by the government to be followed but have neglected to implement a workable solution, based on there being no recourse for individual customers. It appears, at least in the case of Mohammad Rahman that the bank failed in their duty to the customer while citing "it's not our fault and we don't really care anyway". Followed by "oh shit, bad press! Remedy at 12 o'clock!" but that nothing will change in the long term because they still don't care either morally or ethically.
If banks want to be in the business of banking then they ought to make banking their job and that does not only involve profit at the cost of everyone and everything, not excuse themselves with a shrug every time demands are placed on the banking system.
No. From what I gather, kagamine is saying that the banks should be held responsible for money laundering to a point, much like someone selling alcohol checks a person's ID. They are in the position to spot money laundering and can do things to prevent fraud, just like the person checking an ID for alcohol can stop a crime from happening by doing a simple check.
The last bit gives it away: "Banks need regulating... not just on an international level, but locally and for the 'little man' too."
In other words, they are only on the hook for fraud, but not for screwing folks over - and we need that regulation.
Those are of course two totally different things. Money laundering has a very vague definition in law. So banks can never prevent it entirely. That makes a huge difference.