Comment by the_mitsuhiko
1 year ago
> the explanation I was given off-record was my citizenship
That seems fishy and can’t be right. The only way this would work is if you don’t have residence but not because you have the wrong citizenship.
1 year ago
> the explanation I was given off-record was my citizenship
That seems fishy and can’t be right. The only way this would work is if you don’t have residence but not because you have the wrong citizenship.
I have a multi-year titre de séjour, the problem is the Russian citizenship. I guess banks don't want to figure out who's sanctioned and who's not, refusing service is safer.
The first wave of account closures in 2022 was absurdly wide and even affected some French citizens. It was a scandal that got some coverage in the news [1][2][3]. I suspect the filter was the birthplace which is known to the bank, even though some media speculated it was about names. IMO names would be insane even for a bank, however I can imagine a name being one of the inputs for an opaque ML risk-scoring model.
French citizens that I know of got their accounts reinstantiated, but foreign nationals continue to struggle to this day. There's a collective lawsuit going on but it will take years to achieve anything withhin the french justice system.
[1] https://www.lepoint.fr/societe/comptes-bancaires-bloques-en-...
[2] https://www.nouvelobs.com/entreprises/20220726.OBS61366/des-...
[3] https://www.lesechos.fr/finance-marches/banque-assurances/en...
Sounds like a case of being in the right is not enough. The law in theory prevents this kind of stuff, but it might not have done enough of a job here.
Since my wife is Russian and we have lots of Russian friends we're not blind to these checks, but in all cases they were resolved by submitting residence documents. Success rate was 100%.
Of folks that were not residents however or that did not manage to prove their residence, very few got their accounts re-instantiated. We also had a case of someone who was not able to keep their account until they stopped receiving a Russian salary.
Out of curiosity, which country are you in?
Based on my network of ex-colleagues who are now scattered all across Europe the best banking experience for foreigners is in Netherlands and the worst is in France, Spain and Poland. Germany is somewhere in the middle, for other countries I don't have datapoints.
The best part about Europe is the common market that includes online banking. Revolut and Bunq seem to accept all legal residents and that's enough for 90% of basic services. Life would be much harder without them.
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patio11 himself has mentioned in many podcasts that the sanctions following the Russian invasion of Ukraine may have affected Ukrainian persons or businesses as they include territory currently occupied by Russia (perhaps more so than Russian persons or businesses themselves).
Many western financial institutions simply won't keep track of who holds Nikopol or Enerhodar and will close account held by Ukrainian people or business.
(and when you think about the possibility of the account holder lying, it gets worse)
The person I replied to is in the EU where rather strict rules exist that prohibit this kind of nonsense.
The basic account thing ?
Does that apply to US citizens (legally residing in the EU) that routinely get denied bank accounts because the bank don’t want to deal with the IRS ?
May be he probably could bank with LaPoste.
Beyond that, I wonder if you really believe that the EU has no Anti-Money Laudering / Counter Finance Terrorism laws.
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No citizenship is a major factor. For example, Syrians are a very red flag in many countries and many banks outright denies them service. If you are from North Korea, you'd be delusional to think that you can just show up at a "western" bank and walk out with a bank card.