[neiman]

I'm a foreigner living in the EU for many years, here's my 2 cents.

For over a year, I was locked out of financial services due to my inability to pass KYC. The reason was that I had already left one country, but was still in the process of getting a residency visa in another. During the process, I'm allowed to live in this country, but I have no ability to prove it to any financial institutions.

So, no wonder I'm bitter about KYC and AML.

Regarding privacy, I appreciate the EU's effort, but I also feel they focus too much on the legal side and not enough on the implementation side of it.

My ID was photocopied at almost every accommodation I visited in the last decade. I have no way to make private digital payments, and even offline cash is not being promoted.

At least once, my private financial record was accessed by a 3rd party that used it against me. But I'm not the kind of person who would go into a legal battle. I'm the kind of person who uses technology to protect his privacy. And the EU, with decisions like this, makes it very difficult for me.

I doubt banning Monero or Zcash would prevent criminals from tax evasion. They'll find other ways. So, as often happens, "Locks keep honest people honest".

[tpm]

> I'm allowed to live in this country, but I have no ability to prove it to any financial institutions.

That is very strange, because you should be able to get a temporary residence certificate (whatever it's called in your respective country) and thus get an account with if not all then at least most banks.

[splix]

As someone who have been living in a couple of countries under a temporal residence I can say it's not that simple. In many cases the temporal residence is simply not accepted, or not in the list of standard docs, etc. Private companies don't really care about all those non standard cases, and they ask either for a passport of the country or a permanent residence at least.

So legally yes, you can pass a KYC, but in practice you're an edge case no one cares about

[alexey-salmin]

Not OP but in a similar situation. In online banks there's nowhere to upload these temporary certificates, they accept a limited number of options (passeport, residence card etc) and temporary certificate printed on an A4 paper isn't one of them. You can try sending it via email to customer support, I did it with around 8 different banks and Revolut was the only one to reply and open an account for me after the manual review. Another one was PCS that didn't even ask for residence permit but then it went bust, and it took around 6 months to get the money back.

Funnily enough this is still better compared to classic offline banks: none of them would have me even with the 4-year residence permit I have now. I come from a sanctioned country, I guess it raises some internal risk alarms. Only BNP did accept me at first but then after 3 months they froze my account with my salary on it.

[egorfine]

I'm in the same position as the GP. Impossible, because EU bureaucracy sometimes yield kafkaesque deadlocks. For example, some EU countries stated that their permits given to ukrainians are to be considered valid past the printed expiration date and thus stopped producing new plastic for them. Now, good luck finding any KYC provider that will accept that. Or any KYC provider that accepts printed Poland's TPS. Or any provider that doesn't chuckle on a set of documents, each of which is from a different country (like me). Etc, etc.

KYC is way, way more complex than it seems. Essentially, complete remote KYC is simply impossible.

[tpm]

Maybe this is a dumb question, but I am trying to understand this situation. There are still some physical bank branches and I assume at least some banks will open an account for you with that TPS if you visit a branch. Is that not correct? That way you would have access to at least some financial services, if not those where as you write (remote) KYC is needed.

[neiman]

I tried with one physical bank, and they refused; the expat forums said it's the same with all, though I didn't verify myself tbh.

The problem is that the only thing you get is a stamp in your passport saying you applied for a temporary residence permit (including the request number).

The border control people can then (I guess) use this number to verify that your case is still pending, so you're legal in the country. But since no one else can, you get no services.

[Edit: I should add that my main problem was with other financial services, not a bank, since I could use my existing bank accounts from another country. So maybe if I'd make enough effort, I would be able to open a physical bank account, but this was not the main problem for me]

[tpm]

Ah this sucks. If I understand correctly, in our country the expats get a separate paper confirming they are here legally which for some uses (one of them is opening a bank account) has the same validity as an ID card.

[alexey-salmin]

Out of curiosity, which country is this? My experience is quite similar in France (except that I tried more than one physical bank).

[neiman]

Poland, and specifically Warsaw, since the process might be a little different in different parts of Poland.

[egorfine]

Local banks know the local quirks.

Global KYC provider couldn't possibly know. To get paid, they need to serve the majority of customers, not all of them.

[neiman]

You get a stamp in the passport that you're waiting for a decision regarding your stay, but it's meaningless to anyone besides the border control people.

[moltar]

Tell it to Portuguese banks. Run around forever.

[soco]

I assume there will never be any implementation side to focus on, if there's no legal side to push for it. Because as we can clearly see around us, the tech boys don't give a zit on your accesses and privacy and rights, so they have to be pushed to care.

[neiman]

There are plenty of civil organizations and hackerspaces in Europe that focus on such things, not to mention academic groups.

[scoofy]

>I doubt banning Monero or Zcash would prevent criminals from tax evasion. They'll find other ways. So, as often happens, "Locks keep honest people honest".

You realize that "locks keep honest people honest" is a reason to have locks, right? The point is that honest people will commit tax fraud if we make it easy for them to do.

[neiman]

Yes, you're correct. I used it in the wrong way.

I don't think KYC keeps people honest, I think it's just making the life of honest people uncomfortable.

[const_cast]

The thing is you kind of need KYC because otherwise it becomes too easy to launder money. Most countries have previously had problems with organized crime. In the US, the mafia had immense control in some cities in the early to mid 1900s. They're gone, in part, because of processes like KYC.

[neiman]

Many countries still have problems with organized crime, and it's getting worse even though they have aggressive KYC and AML. Israel is one example I'm familiar with. So it's a bit more complicated than that.

I understand the goal of KYC/AML, and maybe in some places it's implemented correctly. But from my limited experience in the EU, it can be easy for criminals to avoid it, but it makes my life difficult for no good reason (both for privacy violation and for times when it is simply fails).

[etrautmann]

"honest people will commit tax fraud"

wouldn't that make them dishonest by definition?

[scoofy]

The entire point of the expression is that many people will do things they shouldn't do if they are given an easy opportunity. The idea is that shame is ultimately what keeps most people in line. The vast majority of people won't commit armed robbery, but a few more will pickpocket, and more still will take the cash out of a wallet they've found before turning it in.

The point of creating friction is that it's the friction that keeps most people in line. A bike lock isn't going to protect your bike from being stolen by someone who is okay with being a bike thief, but if you leave your bike out without a lock, you've just opened yourself up to having it stolen by a much, much larger portion of the population who don't see themselves as "thieves" as they commit theft.

You can just look at what's happened on SF transit. SF has (intentionally) created a system where you technically don't have to scan your card to get on the bus if you have a monthly pass or use the iphone version of payment... the result is a shitload of people who would otherwise pay for the bus if you had to scan your card, and everyone knew you were cheating the system if you don't, they just don't pay now. If you make it easy for people to be bad actors, more people will be bad actors.