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I've opened several bank accounts online and do online banking as well as brokerage and other accounts. Financial documents like this should be uploaded via secure portals and directly stored in encrypted databases with controlled access and network segmentation from the rest of the IT infrastructure.
I am editing this comment to say that I don't think what was being requested is malicious or unethical, but I hope you can understand why people would not feel comfortable doing this, even if they are fine with KYC processes in general.
Corporate banking, I’ve seen exactly this. Asked to send PII docs via email to open accounts and do background checks.
Big 4 Australian bank.
Or I could go into a branch… but all they were going to do was email the copies to the same email address.
Try going to a self-service short-term rental in the UK / EU. You'll find out 48 hours before the trip that you won't get the access code until you send a copy of your ID to weed+lower.6969@gmail.com, and there won't be time to argue.
https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/kyc-and-aml-beyond-th...
But: your bank knows who you are and the recipient's bank knows who they are. Your transfer may have been below the increased attention threshold ($10K to $50K depending on the jurisdictions of both recipients).
Both your accounts are most likely not recent and in good standing.
And so on. I routinely make international wiretransfers as well but I'm under no illusion whatsoever that if I tried to cross an anti-money-laundering or anti-terrorism-financing threshold somewhere that the transfer would be immediately stopped and an investigation would ensue.
If you want to move large amounts of money outside of the regular financial networks and oversight it is possible but (1) it will cost you (2) you will be breaking the law and (3) you may cause others to be breaking the law. Bitcoin would be one way to do it but even that is not nearly as anonymous as most of its users believe.
Banking is a regulated industry for a reason. There was a period (roughly until 2001, guess why) when banks were willing and able to bend the rules depending on who the customer was and how much money was involved. Those banks that continued to do this post 2001 have - if they're located in the West at least - had their ears bent in ways that they did not like one bit and even the Swiss now play ball.
Cash is becoming harder to use and harder to get. Money will most likely go digital in the West soon, the various governments don't like the unauditable and untaxable money streams that cash provides.
Preeetty sure this is something explicitly supported via standard SWIFT messaging.
I have no need for this, but have witnessed some pretty exotic swift messaging in my life and I wouldn’t be surprised if e.g. some banks in Africa have to regularly deal with this exact kind of situation.
I’m not trying to win a debate here. I’m only pointing out an interesting, exotic detail about interbank messaging. Certainly did not intend to upset you, I apologise if I didn’t communicate clearly enough.