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Dah00n • today at 11:32 AM • 2 replies • view on HN

We are not all living in America, yet.


Replies

theplumber • today at 2:40 PM

Well as far as I know banks in Europe (UK included) already ask you a lot of questions when you withdraw your money(I.e cash) or even when you wire various amounts( unless you have a good bank manager). My bank manager in Europe just told me straight that I don’t need to explain him anything but he has to call me anyway because of the bank policy(I.e to tick the boxes).

Next is a hold on your suspicious transaction, request additional documents for your own money, basically a lot of AML and KYC before you can use what’s yours.

I understand the reason why they do this but it feels to me you are no longer in control of your money/property and somehow they fail to catch people loading billions from shady sources so I would rather not keep my money in a bank (at least not a retail bank) if I had a sensible option.

Most people don’t care about this until they get trapped just like most people are /were OK with Paypal and other junk services.

ameliaquining • today at 12:14 PM

That's not really relevant; the U.S. government has enough leverage over the global (fiat) financial system that they can cause any account in any First World country to be shut down.

The actual reason to discount this is that account shutdowns are flashy rare events that reliably summon HN outrage, and so the kind of person who posts here overweights how likely they are, at least for people not on the margins of society. (If that weren't the case, the system wouldn't work and normal people wouldn't use it.)