[btilly]

It really is.

Go read patio11's AML article again. He gives examples. And says he has personally experienced it.

More importantly he explains why it happens. And expresses a wish for more scrutiny on how AML works in practice, because the common result has some bad effects.

Here is his explanation. Having regulators crack down on you is bad for business. Which they will do if money laundering is found. And money launderers actively want to bounce money between different organizations in different legal jurisdictions. Therefore if someone wants to send money to a different country, particularly if they look like they might be hard to find if regulators decide to ask hard questions, they get arbitrarily increased scrutiny. The result of which is indistinguishable from xenophobia. (Which may also be involved.)

[NovemberWhiskey]

>The result of which is indistinguishable from xenophobia.

Yeah, but it's not xenophobia: it's mandatory compliance activity associated with a framework that - if it did not exist - banks would not do. Motives matter. Xenophobia wouldn't be distributed in accordance with weak national finance controls etc.

[btilly]

Any instance is plausibly not xenophobia. Which ones are is hard to prove.

But in practice it is set up and carried out by people who often have some level of personal xenophobia. Thereby generating an institutional cover for personal feelings. The extent of this is impossible to verify. But certainly more than zero. And, anecdotally, likely far more than zero.

That the policies are not simply distributed in accordance with weak national financial controls is demonstrated by the fact that Patrick McKenzie (US citizen) has encountered these problems multiple times while trying to get Japanese banks to deal with US financial institutions. Japan does not doubt that the USA has strong national financial controls. But "foreigner wanting to deal with foreigners" still generates heightened scrutiny and sometimes real problems.

[NovemberWhiskey]

>Japan does not doubt that the USA has strong national financial controls.

US citizens have the opposite problem, FATCA, that makes overseas institutions allergic to doing business with them. I lived in Japan for four years and had absolutely zero problems with banking (including overseas fund transfers both inbound and outbound; getting credit cards; leasing a car), but I have a UK passport.

[harvey9]

This seems more like following AML rules and not being interested in helping a working class person open an account because its not profitable. If you think retail banking is staffed by 'people who often have some level of personal' _racism_, just say so.