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Comment by aidenn0 | Hacker News Reader

Every bank I've opened an account with has asked for photo id...

Do they ask for it up front, or at some random point without warning after telling you the account has been successfully set up?

Interesting, none of my (four) banks have asked for photo ID. Two of which were started online (but are still a traditional bank).

When did you open those accounts? "Know Your Customer" (which basically translates to SSN, government-issued photo ID, and blacklist checks) has been required of all US banks since 2003 thanks to the 2001 PATRIOT Act.

When I was 15, I was able to open a checking account by mail with no ID. Today, every bank I use lists government-issued photo ID as a requirement right on the website before you can start applying.

I work at a major online bank in the US. We have strong "Know Your Customer" policies as required by the Patriot Act, but they do not, in the normal course of business, require a copy of an ID. The Patriot Act does not require IDs, it requires processes to identify the customer, and different banks approach that differently.

Is that a relic of their being a Dutch bank until last year, or did CapitalOne actually change their application process at all?

No, ING Direct USA was always a United States bank regulated by US regulators, it just happened to be owned by a Dutch parent company (and thus ALSO subject to THEIR regulators in some ways). Capital One since taking over and rebranding as "Capital One 360" has not made any major changes to the Know Your Customer process or the application process. As I explained before, the legal requirement is to identify the customer, and there are a variety of different ways to do this which are acceptable to regulators.

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