N26 Bank Closing Accounts Without Notice | Hacker News Reader

N26 Bank Closing Accounts Without Notice

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42 pointsyilugurlu15 comments

I know of a similar company to N26 where not a single customer flagged up by the AML system ever managed to get a payout of the money's in their account. There were literally thousands of frozen accounts. The phone customer service people were told to reply "I'm afraid the issue is still under investigation and we can't discuss it further until the investigation is complete. [Hang up]". Letters got similar replies.

Their account was just frozen forever. Apparently that's the lowest risk thing for the company to do to not get in trouble with authorities for facilitating money laundering.

The filters that triggered this were laughable too - things like having an unusual unicode character in your name could trigger it.

Does this company still exist? Care to name them as a warning to others?

Alas, I can't name them. Wish I could!

Revolut? Wink wink!

They also released statement [1] yesterday, regarding why do they block/close accounts.

[1] https://n26.com/en-es/blog/why-does-n26-block-accounts

Although I can understand the need to fight money laundering, it is very scary. From the explanation provided by the N26, it is basically that we may sometimes close your account due to error and there is nothing you can do about that.

My friend had deposited some money in one of those online banks. Then it got frozen and they requested some additional documentation which my friend provided. When the service did not release the funds, he went to the court and the bank immediately released the money without explanation. Apparently their evidence wasn't really so convincing to withstand court scrutiny. However, it is possible that the regulations require freezing funds even on the basis of flimsy evidence.

Yes, this is typical and normal and required by law. I worked in banking for years, in Europe.

Do you want to screw someone with very little effort? Send a wire transfer to that person and set reference to "contribution to Al Qaeda", "payment for bombs" or something stupid like that. That will match some filters, raise alarms and trigger money laundering, counter-terrorism, etc protocols. The receiving bank must investigate the issue so they will block the transfer and most probably even the receiving account. Very funny. Not.

>Although I can understand the need to fight money laundering

I fucking can't. It's the banks themselves laundering on the large scale and they just pay a fine that's less than what they make doing it. If little people wanted to launder money they've got cash and crypto. All this does is fuck normal people over. If I hadn't moved somewhere I make more than twice the median salary working remote I would have been homeless after Truist did something similar to me.

As to fighting "money laundering." That's completely fucking retarded. Make the actual crime illegal and go after criminals. Put them in jail if you need to. The idea that no one can have privacy (or even functioning banking, bitcoin works better than this) because some people are poorly behaved is completely braindead.

I also found this [1] with the title "N26 Bank GmbH: BaFin orders measures to limit growth and appoints a special commissioner" back dated to 5 October 2021.

[1] https://www.bafin.de/SharedDocs/Veroeffentlichungen/EN/Press...

In Europe, absolutely NOBODY should use those scam banks as their primary one, we have very strong regulations and having physical banks allows to have an immediate answer and contact guarantee.

I’ve never heard of account closing, money blocking and lack of contact in traditional banks (at least in Germany/France/Switzerland) while N26/Revolut ask for additional personal info to data mine like bank statements from family and friends.

I use one of these online banks just for virtual cards to be extra safe and no more than 100€ in the account

N26, Revolut, etc are not scam banks. They have got their banking licenses and are subject to exactly the same regulation as any other traditional bank.

N26 is regulated by BaFin and has a full German banking license; it's just as secure as your Deutsche Bank or Sparkasse account. They also must follow the same data privacy and security laws as those banks.

N26 spared no effort to ignore and avoid any interference and control by BaFin. They are a different beast than Sparkasse or Deutsche. At one point, the only way for BaFin to contact N26 was via the customer hotline. There was no way for the banking regulation and control entity to contact them. N26 evaded BaFin as long as they coud. They've built their company and infrastructure extremely fast and extremely recklessly. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-n26-money-laudnering-idUS... https://fintechmagazine.com/banking/n26-customer-growth-limi...

But isn't Deutsche Bank involved in all sorts of money laundering around Putin and Trump?

Personal banking with D bank is so crap that you start loving banks like N26

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