Are EU banks just mass surveillance devices?
A recent encounter with my bank (in Denmark) it made my realize that banks became mass surveillance devices for the different states disguised by fighting anti money-laundering.
It might just be me and my situation but as a customer I can't refuse to provide information about any of my transactions because the bank will cancel my accounts as required by our local law. I find this quite insane.
Is this a common EU behaviour for banks for all of EU? How did it become like this and why is no one protesting laws like this?
Is your implementation of this law (Anti-Money Laundering Directive (AMLD)) different from the Danish one? Are you allowed to refuse to provide details about transactions without consequences?
100 comments
[ 0.18 ms ] story [ 199 ms ] threadI'm wondering how it became the norm the your own bank requires to know everything about you and you are not allowed to say no any more. It doesn't feel good. :)
Actually I feel violated..
Don't be angry at your bank. Be angry at your politicians. They pass the laws. The banks (just like everyone else) simply obey the laws. No bank wants to have the cost of a KYC and AML (and it is EXPENSIVE)(consider also the penalties for going over or under on these tasks).
In the same spirit, don't blame your judges. They work with the laws passed on the various parliaments (and/or EU Regulations)
It's not personal, it's algorithmic. Switching banks is not going to solve this for you, since every bank that interacts with the economy you live in will have to interact with these laws.
Some are more of a pain about it than others although. Like venmo in the USA temp freezes your account if you put "iranian food" and insists you put descriptions for your transactions, while other p2p cash transfer services in the usa do not insist on transaction descriptions for example.
AML is the least effective policy out there, costing more than it recovers by a large amount and causing a lot of collateral damage to the poor, but there is an entire industry funded by it so thus it continues. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/25741292.2020.1...
The AMLD is not secret. You can read it here: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A...
The AMLD is not dissimilar to any other anti-money laundering regulation in the World, including the USA, Switzerland and others.
If you have large cash flows, you will be asked by banks to explain the nature of them to ensure they are not illicit. If you are not prepared to explain that, the bank is not under any duty to do business with you, and depending on the nature of your transactions may be required to report them to law enforcement. If you do not answer to law enforcement, they will likely start an investigation to ensure you're not involved in organised crime.
Once your bank or law enforcement are happy you're not involved in organised crime, they'll leave you alone.
That's it.
If you are not involved in organised crime, but not prepared to explain that, yes, law enforcement are going to be interested and banks may not be prepared to do business with you. This has been the case for hundreds of years, it's only now there are more strict guidelines and rules around when suspicions should be raised and reported, and how they should be investigated.
I really don't see what the paranoia here is actually about.
I'm supposed to explain everything upon request and I can't say no. I don't find that reasonable.
About larger sums I don't have a problem with explaining where a certain transaction originated from, but it seems like banks want to trace money from their origin to destination. I don't find this reasonable.
I would expect this to be something that law enforcement would do.
Can you say something about the sums? I (in germany) got my rent money every month from my parents while I was a student. No problem. I withdraw something like 100€ per week for bars, backeries and other small expenses and I never ever had any problems.
It buffles me that so many people are jumping to conclusions although you provided so little context.
If you have a cash inflow of 50k per month and withdrow that much, the bank may think you pay people in cash, avoiding taxes (like on construction sites). Which is totaly legit IMO. But again, you gave almost no context..
I do not know any jurisdiction in which intentionally avoiding tax is legal.
I am really curious how this has proven to be an issue for you or if this is just another banks bad crpyto thing?
I think that's their choice. They can make that decision, and it's fine.
Why do you think you are entitled to demand a private enterprise allows you to use their services in any way you see fit without asking you questions?
Want to receive your salary? You need a bank.
Do you need to pay rent? You need a bank.
Do you want to receive social welfare? You need a bank.
As unfortunate as it is, banks have become a dependency for modern day living.
one may say that this cousin is trying to wash/launder his cash from that drug trafficking, stealing, and by breaking it down to small amounts which he gives you in cash and then you 'venmo'/paypal to him via the banking system (I can give you more cringe-worthy scenarios but I hope you get the spirit on this one).
transfers between family (I assume the very immediate husband-wife that reasonably live together and have a household together). If you exchange €10k per month with various cousins, then sorry - not sorry - that smells fishy.
I don't suppose any bank is triggered by a €20 payment once per month (splitting pizza/drinks). But if you do this daily/regularly and the amounts (even seemingly small) add up to some €k, then again.. sorry - not sorry - that smells fishy.
I remember paying for a business service in the UK some years ago a couple of thousand (GBP) and the guy's bank got triggered because his payments were coming from within UK and this one came from the EU. Now, it is small amount, totally justifiable, but perhaps the guy has told his bank he only does business 'locally' and he's been getting multiple payments from abroad.
Also the other bank will also ask about the money received and the receiver will have to explain themselves.
The solution is to use crypto for everything instead of cash. Not realistic for some time based on my experiences.
Also, banks have literally automated alarm and triggers in place to flag transactions for reviews.
Famous HSBC case comes to mind.
No, this is about Total Informational Awareness and control of the peasants.
They are. That's why they continue to invest in the development of cryptocurrencies. Without any bank tracking, the likes of Monero wouldn't exist.
> this is about Total Informational Awareness and control of the peasants.
What are they going to do, with the list of my direct debits...? There is nothing to be gained by knowing what 90% of people do with their little pile of money. It's the 10% that matters - the ones who are most likely to be engaged in crimes and tax evasion.
DB regularly goes into scaremongering whenever a client does something they don't like/understand. Using some "modern" banks (Lunar, Revolut, etc), crypto, or anything of the like triggers alarm bells--undoubtedly physical ones considering how ancient their processes are.
If you're a foreigner, you can double the amount of transactions they will question, and if you don't speak Danish, quadruple. Banksters are sadly very racist in Denmark.
Edit: Remember that DB just got finished dealing with the fallout of their money laundering scanal in Estonia. They "oopsied" away billions, and got less than a slap on the wrist for it. They have massively increased the size of their Financial Crime divisions (hundreds or thousands of people), and all of these people need to "show" their usefulness.
Edit: I'm a DB customer, shareholder, and my gf is a DB employee. Feel free to explain the downvotes.
I recently sold some bitcoin and was told not to do it again by the bank. I have been communicating about this for two months now and wrote two complaints.. one to the bank and another to a government agency.
The issue is thay I bought the bitcoin anonymously 10 years ago and kept it in cold storage. They don't understand that. It's has been a shit show, really.
I was also told to prove that the bitcoin belonged to me when I sold it, but they refuse to tell me exactly how they want to get this proof and I refuse to guess what they want and this is a stalemate for now.
I'm being helpful and await their precise instructions about what kind of proof they want ..
Clearly the bank doesn't know anything about crypto currencies.
Edit: I paid taxes and can prove everything. Just to make sure that this is not something illegal going on. :)
This is repressive. Many things in our world are: say, the institution of citizenship could be viewed as a modern serfdom!
As long as you declare your gains to SKAT, then your bank should be fine with you taking money in from an exchange. You only declare your gains and losses after you sell your crypto[1]. From a SKAT perspective, they see crypto just like another FX trade, which is the correct and logical way to look at this.
The only problem is that as you bought the bitcoin a long time ago, I presume you don't have any documentation about it. That's where SKAT may have an issue, and you'll need to pinkieswear that you bought the crypto at $X. I have no idea how they handle this.
You're making me think that now that I'm abroad I'd be better off selling my BTC at an ATM and just take the cash.
[1]: https://skat.dk/borger/aktier-og-andre-vaerdipapirer/skat-pa...
Skat has a guide which I followed, declared and paid them. I don't expect any issues from them.
good luck buddy
And maybe you should also read the post again, or did you miss this entirely?
> because the bank will cancel my accounts
Good luck cancelling my censorship resistant payments.
And yet, it doesn't seem to work. Beyond that, it also addresses only one of the major problems with cryptocurrency
Im referring to the fact that it theoretically works but is in practice not particularly widespread. Also, it’s supposedly capable of handling „millions of transactions per second“, but if that is actually working out remains to be proven.
> not sure what you want to say using your first sentence.
It’s just my annoyance with crypto bros being obsessed with one particular monetary system that played a role for some time while being mostly ignorant to the fact how and why modern currencies work.
This is where those naive obsessions with BTC supply being technically locked etc comes from.
Ordinary people who funded, in small amounts, a grassroots non-violent protest that the ruling political party disagreed with and found inconvenient had their bank accounts frozen.
They could not access their legally obtained funds, nor have additional legally obtained funds deposited.
There is no precedent for an action like this.
It is a good reminder of exactly what can and will happen with digital money - much like cloud video games, movies and music it is not actually yours - it can and will be revoked at any time by the platform for any reason.
That was not a "peaceful protest." People were armed, ramming police vehicles, plotting political assassinations, and this was all on top of the basic crime of blocking public roads. I don't care what your political hobby horse is. Blocking roads, which need to be open for emergency vehicles at all times, is not a valid form of peaceful protest.
If people supported that cluster of crimes financially they were making themselves part of the criminal activity and should deal with the consequences.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_convoy_protest
I'm also curious to know your opinions on other armed protests that did not end in a firefight of the past going back to the 1950s (most prominent in the US during civil rights protests), the torching of police cars during hundreds of such protests, and generally how you feel about acts of civil disobedience.
Additionally, I'm curious about your opinions on extrajudicial punishment, government-corporate partnerships, and civil asset forfeiture.
I don't care what your political hobby horse is, how do you feel about a government leaning on a corporate entity to extrajudicially seize control of peoples assets for engaging in civil disobedience?
The penalty is having to find a different financial institution.
So you would infer, from OPs questions, that they have been entering dodgy, snarky, or perhaps even too honest reasons in their transaction forms?
Not judging here, but what if OP did in fact spend a few hundred on an escort service and was 100% sincere about that, to their bank. And then the bank did not believe it, because of the behavioral statu quo of other bank clients. And now the bank is all "You are not funny at all, tell us the truth". Now, the laws allow banks to thoroughly pursue their investigation until they conclude "This client actually spend a few hundred in prostitutes". And because of the statu quo (and the laws that originated it) everyone up the investigative chain gets to know about it.
I have a bank account with about 5K euros on it. I have not touched it in 20 years (no deposits, no withdrawals). I earn tiny dividends on it each year.
I got a request from the bank 18 months ago to provide my tax return to them. I said no, why? They threatened me to confiscate my account (orally, on the phone). I replied I understand you need to ask info from me, by law. But if you don't get the information it's ok too, afaik. And there is no possible way that I can launder anything if the money is just sitting there.
I will see what happens...
Look it up for your country. You are about to lose that money :)
Friendly suggestion, stop playing hardball and give them the paperwork they seek. Dormant accounts can be either 'honest' ones (you) or accounts that remain open waiting to funnel the moneys from that fraud, etc.
In my dreams, I take the time going there in person with my ID, my anger and my badwill, and no tax return.
I get wildly upset in front of all other clients in a very lively way, just to laugh at them when they tell me I am "dormant" later.
I know, it makes no sense, just daydreaming...
Yes they are, money surveillance. And? That is one of the goals of banks in most countries.
Banks are businesses that need to make profit following the rules of each country, if you don't like it take the cash and put it under your mattress and take care of it. Then start wondering why are you worried about having cash at home and who is the responsible on the security of your house, city and country, how this security is funded and how it can be solved.
That BECAME one of the goals. 40 years ago when majority of transactions were in cash, the bank's couldn't do this. Once we got credit/debit cards, the game changed and (we) by using cards instead of cash we freely hand them over the data.
It doesn't help that countries have a €500 max cash limit for purchases etc. But for the everyday man/woman, and for their everyday lives, there are very few payments to that amount (laptop, phone, car, furniture). Most other payments can be done with cash, and then the bank has very little info on you.
This is a huge red flag.
I paid taxes for this and all is above board.
> I would expect this to be something that law enforcement would do.
If the bank didn't tell law enforcement about money moving around in strange ways, how would they ever find out?
Edit: not indeterminate source, but a know large crypto exchange.
How do you come to that conclusion? Monitoring cash at the point of issuing is, when talking about small sums at least, impractical if not impossible. Money laundering directives usually aren't concerned with small cash transactions on the side of the consumer. It's pretty much only relevant if the source of the money is unclear/dubious and/or the sum is very large.
Judging by your examples, both of the examples mentioned above seem to apply.
> Edit: not indeterminate source, but a know large crypto exchange.
The exchange is not the source, it's the exchange. The question the bank has to answer is "where is the money from" and since you just exchanged the money, the question extends to "where is the BTC from"?.
So you're right. They are not earning money on me and this makes me a terrible customer.
At first they didn't understand what cold storage was. Now I'm trying to get them to tell me what kind of proof they want me to send them. I don't want to be guessing and having to do this again and again until they are happy ..
It's disgusting, I agree.
We need to stick to paper money no matter what, otherwise we risk going back to a condition worse than slavery.
Why do you think cash is so popular among criminals? Maybe there are some new laws, but if the government suspects you of anything, they are definitely going to look at you bank account, and if you owe something, they can just take it. And they can definitely ask about any transaction, for tax reasons. And after all, that's how they got Al Capone.
I find it ironic how people go through ridiculous lengths to secure their communication as if they were some high profile targets for governments and on the other hand have no problem going all cashless, exposing their entire life through their bank account, all in one convenient location.
There is a flip side though. Banks are highly regulated. So while they will hand your life over if asked for in due process, they also have obligations of security and secrecy, so that they won't hand your life over without due process.
But I do agree that it is a bit worrying how AML (combined with terrorism and child abuse) seems to be increasingly used as justification for more surveillance. Personally I am not convinced that the money and resources being spent on AML are yielding proportional results for the cost.
Cryptocurrency _is_ used for money laundering, and generally not as a currency. The internal messages of Binance employees made public after the CZ arrest have provided evidence of what we all knew anyway.
Perhaps the title should be "Is crypto just a money laundering device?"