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Comment by IdontRememberIt | Hacker News Reader

I remember when I was young (+40 years ago), many Swiss private banks would only hire Swiss people. That rule was due to the French IRS equivalent having their own employees sent to Switzerland and hired by Swiss bank. They were mole transmitting confidential information about French clients. So these private banks had to restore trust and security.

Honestly still today, for some critial jobs, I do not understand companies not hiring local people (whatever nationality) with their friends and whole family (parents, cousins, etc) in the country. The cost of treason is higher (if they need to escape the country). It is not bullet proof, but it mitigates the risk.

But it looks like banks have a short memory (This guy was a sysadmin): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herv%C3%A9_Falciani

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When worked as technical support we had some large banks as customers who insisted everyone who worked their cases be US citizens. We worked with some semi sensitive technical data, but nothing directly banking related. A few banks required drug and credit checks (the credit checks were just dumb).

Amusingly they were happy to hire on connected people in less friendly nations when operating overseas.

I think the citizen thing was reasonable, credit check maybe not.

> credit checks (the credit checks were just dumb).

Credit checks are extremely smart. People who are financially vulnerable are high risk.

I wonder how accurate that is. There's plenty of evidence of folks who are desperate doing desperate things... but also plenty of people doing bad things simply for "more" money.

As far as financal status goes I'm not sure how good an indicator this is, for say a support role where you may or may not interact with a bank.

Take the case of this American politician:

https://mavenroundtable.io/theintellectualist/news/wsj-kushn...

The guy's family has a massive debt. He was denied security clearance because that debt makes him a big risk. His party somehow push it through (politicians, sigh) and now he has been bailed out by the Saudi regime (iirc he's foreign secretary to Saudi Arabia or something - the top politician responsible for that country).

In potentially sensitive or powerful positions it's only prudent to look at how susceptible someone is to being influenced. The news is full of stories of people committing fraud to pay for gambling debts. Treason isn't exactly far off of that..

Wouldn't think counter point be all the wealthy political folks who do the same thing?

It appears to be indeed a bias towards the poor, in favor of the rich.

Why are we acting like the two are mutually exclusive? There are two vulnerability groups here:

1) People with financial difficulties who would be more prone to take small amounts on a regular basis to "round out" their income difficulties. 2) People who, even though financially secure or well off, if given the opportunity for a large score, would be tempted to take it.

There are different approaches for dealing with both, with some overlap. Limiting the possibility for any fraud by limiting access, requiring multiple approvals, etc. helps negate both groups' potential for fraud. Credit checks help to eliminate only the first group's potential.

A credit check is basically relevant to any job. If you can't be trusted to pay back your loans on time as promised how can you be trusted to do your job as promised?

That sounds like it would produce pretty vicious cycle.

Bad credit, can't get job... can't get job, can't improve credit...

This would be hard to argue against if credit scores were accurate. They're not exactly pseudoscience, but they're still far from perfect.

When I was buying my house, I was building up and paying off ~$500 across 4 credit cards (one for Home Depot, one for Uber, etc.) I paid them down to $0 every month.

I'd consider that behavior to be financially smart. I got discounts of 5% on all those purchases because of the perks of the cards.

I was shocked by the score the bank had given me, since I do monitor my credit. They told me I had to stop using all those cards. I did, and my score went up 100 points instantly.

You didn't mention what that utilization rate was, but it makes perfect sense to me. Using those cards so much gave the impression that you "needed" the credit line, even if you paid it off by the end of the month.

If you have a $50k limit and spend $2k/month, paying off in full, it doesn't really impact your score much at all. If you have $1k limit and spend $500/month it's a big risk.

You can usually make additional payments during the cycle so it doesn't impact your utilization. Whenever I make a larger purchase I just login and pay it off in full right away so it doesn't ding me.

The utilization rate was ~1%.

Utilization rate is 0 if you pay off every month..

That’s not accurate, you can read more here: https://www.thebalance.com/understanding-credit-utilization-...

We're talking powerful and/or sensitive positions here. Well paid IT for banks, political roles, management/directorial roles in industry. A very small percentage of overall jobs.

The largest single source of bankruptcy in the US is medical debt. So you are essentially equating having a family member need serious medical care with mendacity, laziness, and general moral failure. Is that really something we want to do?

No, it isn't. While a credit check can show someone acting badly, it can also show mistakes, youth, and simple bad luck.

(they used to give away credit cards to college students working part time).

It might also show that someone has a medical condition that wound up expensive, which can happen despite medical insurance.

Many of these things do not mean that you'll not do your job as promised nor that you will steal money from the company.

And not being born into a wealthy family.

This is something people in security sensitive fields like to claim, but the fact is narcissism drives acts of betrayal much more often than desperation for cash. The thrill of "getting away with something" or having the sense of being smarter than peers and overseers has certainly caused much more betrayal than something as mundane as money.

Any data to backup that claim?

What you are saying maybe true for very high profile breaches - but for most firms, the "has a high degree of debt to income ratio" is a decent signal to decide if that person may have reasons to be vulnerable to bribery.

The people mentioned in the article are Americans. Also discrimination on the basis of ethnicity and national origin is illegal: https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/discrimination/ethnicdisc

But if other "Americans" (maybe even with dual citizenship) of the same ethnicity and background have a propensity to spy on behalf of their country of origin, then it seems reasonable to be extra careful with such individuals.

Still, the discrimination is illegal and violates human rights (also, modern societies do not have a notion of collective responsibility).

hhahah, I remember a meeting with Roche (swiss drug company) where they said their SAP admins had to be swiss citizens. Not German, Not French and definitely not Italian was how he said it.

Also, +20 years ago, in the big Swiss banks, you could go up in the (top) management almost only if you were an officer in the army. Times have changed. hehe

Everyone at my firm must be a United States citizen.

It is racist to assume that someone’s place of birth determines their allegiances.

No it's not. Some form of prejudice, certainly, but not racism.

Thats a pretty inclusive view on what racism is.

I really don't think racist is the term to describe this discrimiation, since you could hardly say Swiss and French are from a different race.

edit: clarification

It was a matter of nationality (family bounds, schools you attended, school/univeristy friends, friends, etc), not race. A Swiss being black could have been hired.

Switzerland is a small village, so if you break the law, everybody will know it. So locals tend to respect the law (social pressure).

Today a company would be bbqed in the news paper for such a heavy policy.

By your logic, people from all nations should be able to get top secret government security clearances. Let me know how that works out.

No. By his logic "birth place" shouldn't be the determining factor. FYI, birth place does not determine nationality.

While that's true, personally I'm ok with birth place being a restriction for some things e.g. in order to run for President in the US, one needs to be born in the US, not merely a citizen. Not sure how it is in other Western countries.

I don’t think that’s true - John McCain was born in Panama. The rule is they have to be a citizen at birth.

The problem with this logic is that when applied, it can absolutely be racist.

For example, in your example what happens to those born in say, Puerto Rico? Are they barred from running for president because they weren't born in the US?

Naturalized citizens are often more trustworthy than citizens by birth.

But is it true? Because speaking as someone living abroad, it's certainly true for me.

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