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Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

nytimes.com

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Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#591

Post by Quindecillion »

vvpan wrote: post #294
hanniabu wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ethereum trumps bitcoin in pretty much every metric except for market cap, which is lagging because bitcoin has the name brand, simpler for people to understand, and misinformation spread by bitcoin maxis and competing chains

Yeah, to say that "Bitcoin" is the epitome of blockchain technology, an ever-innovating field, is either ignorant or disingenuous.

Can you describe to me what the main point of "blockchain technology" is? What is there to innovate in terms of its core function?

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#592

Post by shapefrog »

michaelt wrote: post #543
KRAKRISMOTT wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You get priority support for telephone banking and you get a dedicated account manager (not sure if it's a fully accredited banker). You are automatically classified as one of the highest tiered customers for them and can get preferred rates etc. on many other services. Aside from HNW individuals, they also traditionally cater to "expats", which is a fancy British word for high income white collar professionals/digit…

> they also traditionally cater to "expats", which is a fancy British word for high income white collar professionals/digital nomads who either travel frequently or have foreign residencies for business. "Expats" is also used for elderly retirees moving to the Costa Del Sol, so IME it's not a particularly high-income or white-collar term. Now, if you were talking about "non-doms" that would be a different matter :) O…

"non-doms" are rich foreigners in England (and the very rare Englishman who hasnt yet had the taxman rule on their attempt to pretend they are no longer English), immigrants are poor/average foreigners in England.

Expats are all English when they are outside the UK - be they retired in Spain or living / working in Dubai / Asia / Australia.

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#593

Post by maccard »

HenryBemis wrote: post #590
bostik wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Combination of reputational damage[0] and him being a PEP. I believe the account closure was a business decision, but they definitely had no reason to be public about it. One good thing came out of the debacle, though: it put the spotlight on UK retail banking regulations and how they are allowed to treat customers in the first place. Financial institutions don't like small-time PEPs. They don't net the banks anywher…

Negative brand value is no reason to debank someone, half musicians that do drugs would give their bank a bad name. There must be a legal basis to debank someone. I don't like Farage's opinions, and being a PEP only means "more eyes on you", doesn't mean "kick them out". 1) Now, if Coutts dropped the ball on something, shame on them. A good lawyer can get some good ££££ for damaging the client's business/etc. 2) If F…

Farage didn't meet their net worth requirement, which is why his account was closed. A bit like any retail banking product - e.g. HSBC advance, there can be some slack in how strictly the rules are allied. Coutts decided that since he no longer met their net worth requirements, they didn't want to continue to serve him. They may have decided to continue serving other clients whos circumstances changed though for their own reasons.

If farage had met the requirements, none of this would have happened.

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#594

Post by QuantumGood »

trompetenaccoun wrote: post #523
ArabicBaklava wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, this happened in 2017.. fast forward to this account closure effect on my life: I had to go back to my country, without a degree, was not able to land any job. Unfortunately, good places require degrees. Stayed unemployed, hit with chronic depression as anyone would. Lost 4+ years of professional progress. When covid came, i was able to complete my degree online and graduated in 2021, but because all fresh grad…

Horrible. I've heard similar stories but this one's the worst by far. This shouldn't be allowed to ever happen again, such sudden closures without warning need to be illegal. The issue is banking is highly regulated but a lot of the regulation is about AML, terrorism screening and such. Not actually protecting customers from abuse but rather the other way around - banks are taking precautions to protect themselves fr…

It's not the bank you need to worry about in DeFi , e.g. https://web3isgoinggreat.com/

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#596

Post by Quindecillion »

FatalLogic wrote: post #520
krupan wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about metrics like answering the question of, "how much of the coin exists?" Or metrics like, "how understandable and simple is the overall protocol and mining scheme?" Or "has this chain ever broken it's own rules and rolled back transactions at the behest of its benevolent dictator?" Spoiler: Bitcoin wins on all of those. The market cap is better for a reason.

>"has this chain ever broken it's own rules and rolled back transactions at the behest of its benevolent dictator?" Bitcoin has also done this. You're referring to the $50m DAO smart contract bug (or "hack") early in 2016, when Ethereum had been running for about a year. The Ethereum blockchain was swiftly rolled back. This was achieved by the majority of Ethereum developers agreeing to create an update to Ethereum s…

> But neither currency has ever done a roll back of this nature again.

Maybe not a rollback, but Ethereum has proven it is malleable time and time again. As one example, compare the issuance of ether to Bitcoin. Eth's issuance is a dog's breakfast, indicative of changing opinions by those who call the shots... just like a central bank.

Bitcoin's issuance? Predictable and steady as a rock for 15 years.

Another example is replacing Proof-of-Work with Proof-of-Stake. A core part of how it works, important for censorship resistance and accessibility, and they removed it for something permissioned that makes censorship far easier.

Bitcoin? Still on PoW and never going to change. If you think it will change, you still don't understand Bitcoin. But never fear, there's already a PoS Bitcoin out there (that no one uses).

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#597

Post by rosmax_1337 »

gadders wrote: post #561

Has anyone got a copy of that Stone Toss rolling boulder cartoon? People were happy when it was only "fascists" getting debanked but now it's happening to normal people they don't like it. Wait until it starts happening to everyone that attended a pro-Palestinian rally.

Stone Toss, the forbidden xkcd. :)

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#598

Post by trompetenaccoun »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #555
robertlagrant wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is a solution - not sure if everyone's ready to hear it yet: Decentralized finance Carrying some emergency cash is also a solution for this sort of thing.

right but how much emergency cash is needed? He had a transfer of 6000 plus whatever else? Should one have 6000 in emergency cash available? Seems excessive. Anyway lots of countries seem to think they are soon going cashless, so good luck with that.

Actually withdrawing too much cash was one of the reasons cited in the article for banks closing down people's accounts ;)

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#599

Post by j-a-a-p »

neonsunset wrote: post #518
ArabicBaklava wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, this happened in 2017.. fast forward to this account closure effect on my life: I had to go back to my country, without a degree, was not able to land any job. Unfortunately, good places require degrees. Stayed unemployed, hit with chronic depression as anyone would. Lost 4+ years of professional progress. When covid came, i was able to complete my degree online and graduated in 2021, but because all fresh grad…

I wonder if the bank can be sued for this. That's how random bank managers get found in a river, due to policies like these impacting the innocent.

OTOH I do hope a bank is allowed to go full stop on the brakes if needed. I had my CC blocked 4 times because of fraud detection. All done by the CC company and it never cost me anything but inconvenience.

If the bank would be liable, we all suffer. How much will banks charge if we would be both secured from fraud risks and indemnified from account closure damages? I would think 1% of your cashflow would not be unreasonable.

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#600

Post by gadders »

rosmax_1337 wrote: post #597
gadders wrote: post #561

Has anyone got a copy of that Stone Toss rolling boulder cartoon? People were happy when it was only "fascists" getting debanked but now it's happening to normal people they don't like it. Wait until it starts happening to everyone that attended a pro-Palestinian rally.

Stone Toss, the forbidden xkcd. :)

Some of it is pretty controversial. Some of it, pretty sensible.
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