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Comment by sneak | Hacker News Reader

You have no right to a banking relationship, so there is no justice involved.

It's not scary until everyone stops accepting cash.

Maybe that was a true when a bank was a private business and you could reasonably live without it. Today they are effectively a branch of the government and your life would be seriously impaired.

For example, where does your employer setup direct deposit? How do you apply for a mortgage and demonstrate assets?

If society relies on technology then you need it to participate. Yes you can still breathe without access to transportation, but you can’t work in the economy. In 1940 car or bus access was a luxury because normal people got along fine without one. That’s why it’s misleading to say increasing car access is an better standard of living. It’s actually an increase in the cost to participate in life.

So yes banking must be a right. Or alternatively we could strengthen cash rights (reduce technology) with legal protections to qualify for loans, etc. But that won’t happen.

In the EU, there is a right for a bank account. But this right does not cover anti-money laundering excuses to debank a person.

So it’s effectively a jail sentence, and that’s fine for people who break social rules, but we have built up a whole justice system for applying them. When government pretends taking away your bank is anything less serious, they just want to sidestep due process.

It's not government taking it away. It's a bank taking it away because they do not want to spend time and money to resolve the situation. The legal risk is high where as there is very little upside for retaining the customer relationship.

So what would happen if were in that situation and then went to another bank?

Banks can only share sars in very limited circumstances. If you went to another bank they, in almost every case, would not know that your previous bank filed a sar.

The bank will however ask why you are switching to them and telling “my account was closed without explanation“ will make them think twice

We don’t need to invent a mechanism for banks to share bad customer data between each other. There is a whole ecosystem like credit bureaus for bank accounts.

But sars being secret has nothing to do with that.

FINCEN (and others who have search access to it, which rounds to most Federal Government criminal investigators) can see all SARs filed. Banks (and other financial institutions obligated to file a SAR- like casinos!) don't get to see what any other institution has filed. The point of a SAR is to provide a data point for an investigator, not to create a black-list of unbankable people.

There is a right for a personal bank account only.

Which is already a big improvement over the situation in America.

Being cut from the savings/investment/loan system would certainly suck and be unfair if you did nothing wrong, but much less than losing your basic bank account. That's where you receive/cash your pay, tax refunds, any government benefits, write checks (for things that are still paid that way by default), make transfers, etc.

That's true, and it's certainly better than nothing, but engaging in some legal business activity is also one of the basic personal freedoms in the Western value system, one that is trampled on very badly by the recent rise of draconian banking regulations. For businesses, the banking situation in the EU is actually worse than the US right now. It depends on the country, but in some places small businesses basically have to go begging around, hoping that some bank will take on the "compliance risk" of opening an account for them.

I disagree. Bank accounts aren’t the solution; regulating the end use cases (ie businesses that don’t accept cash) is a much better option for society.

If anything, the government out here discourages using cash and not the other way around

There are thousands of banks hungry for your business. Just because one doesn't want to do business with you doesn't mean another one won't.

That is not true. All the banks must satisfy the same regulator. None of them are going to take a risk that invites audits from the big cheese to get your 20k in savings. The legal term to avoid here is “unilateral action” - don’t do what the other banks aren’t doing.

The list of problematic people is even shared between them by the regulator.

Due to the savings and loan crisis there is no longer a plurality of banking businesses each with their own independent thinking. There are 10 marketing corporations for the same government service. Same with mortgages.

Not just seriously impaired, but outright impossible sometimes. For example, It is illegal to pay in cash above a certain amount, where I'm from. That means having a bank account is not an option, it is practically a requirement. If you don't have a bank account you simply can't buy a house, or a car.

It can be incredibly stressful even right now. I had my bank freeze my accounts because they believe I deposited a fraudulent check (I hadn't). They were incredibly unhelpful during the entire process necessitating hours on hold, going to the branch multiple times and eventually they threatened to close all my accounts. Took about a week to get sorted while I had no access to my funds, including direct withdrawal bills like my mortgage payment.

And you are correct... I had no rights. They had all the power, and they knew it and acted accordingly.

It is already scary, many governments mandate that large purchases are only made through the banking system. Not to mention the private-sector pressure (how do you get paid for work?).

But then we have to pay taxes on any amount of cash money above ~650 EUR in the Netherlands. They WANT to steer us towards cash-less, and MANY shops in the Netherlands have already stopped accepting cash. It's where we're going - ultimate control. No right on banking, but also it's a necessicity soon. So.... Too bad?

I leave my cards at home and only carry cash.

Countries in EU have a hard limit on cash transactions. Buying a car for over a few grand and it has go through bank. Renting a flat, even if you pay monthly, the tax man considers the whole duration as one big business deal, so the rent has to go through a bank

Which is the root problem, and the solution is a constitutional amendment guaranteeing an inalienable right to an electronic money account one can send and receive money from.

“Banks” don’t really have a point in a cashless society (the government can operate a database just as well), but it seems the government wants to the ability to persecute selected people or populations with plausible deniability. So they use the ability to get banned by big business as a proxy.

Who would provide credit and do maturity transformation? Maybe you end up with duration matched funds everywhere but I think that's unlikely for regional banks.

Why is credit and maturity transformation needed for electronic payments?

If people want to borrow money to pay for something (credit cards and the like), that can be its own thing that the government is not involved in.

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