Graham wrote:
The threshold for banks reporting cash withdrawals to the authorities will be pretty high. They have some vague due diligence requirement which means if you go into a bank and ask to withdraw a four-figure sum in cash they will ask what it is for, but that is more for your protection (that someone is not extorting you or whatever) and in any case you just say you’re buying a second-hand car and they say fine and give it to you. It’s your money, after all. You can take the max from ATMs each day and probably quite a lot over the counter and the authorities aren’t going to start sniffing around unless the amounts become really significant. Even then, they would have to prove a case – it’s not like you suddenly become obliged to account for what you’ve done with your cash.
gallois wrote:
In these days of money laundering rules it is more difficult than you might think to quickly get £800 in cash without some Government body being able to trace its source if they so wish.
@Graham. I think you need to understand that @gallois is coming from knowledge of the French banking system, which is quite archaic and I have discovered has quite a few facets that arent found in the UK system. I work in an international industry where I am mostly paid in dollars but from various countries. I have had my french bank with-hold money from my account on numerous occasions over the last 5 years “for security reasons”… Except they dont tell me this so I spend time chasing an employer for non-payment to discover they have paid me but the bank has held the money… And on kicking up a fuss and complaining, I then get threatening letters demanding to know where money had come from or is going to… All while paying high bank fees for the privilege.
The irony is that this has meant that I now use a couple of different banks & internet currency transfer companies to get paid and move money around to save me exchange rate & bank fees without having the hassle of pay hold-ups… which probably looks alot more like money laundering!!
You really couldnt make it up…
Regards SD..
skydriller wrote:
I have had my french bank with-hold money from my account on numerous occasions over the last 5 years “for security reasons”… Except they dont tell me this so I spend time chasing an employer for non-payment to discover they have paid me but the bank has held the money… And on kicking up a fuss and complaining, I then get threatening letters demanding to know where money had come from or is going to… All while paying high bank fees for the privilege.
Wow.
Sometimes I forget how privileged we are with the Swiss banking system. I only noticed when I had to work with other banks how easy banking here is.
As for the French one: Years ago I had to open an account for a transaction which could only be done to a French bank account. I then got the enormeous payment of 1100 FF paid into that (actually a VAT return). It took me a year to get back to a part of France where that institute had an agency, before the days of ebanking and of course I did not get a bancomat card for it. By the time I got there, fees had eaten up most of the little money I had wanted to save and when I actually wanted to take it out and close the account, the fees involving that left me 30 FF in the red. Taught me never to touch banking in France anymore.
And as for taxes: The other day I talked to a German couple who live here since a few years. We got to the subject of taxes and to my amazement, they had never considered deducting child care and other stuff from their income in their declarations, even though they paid substantial sums. When I asked why, they said, why bother, the taxes here are so ridiculously small in comparison to Germany that they felt it unnecessary to deduct further. By now they changed their mind about this, once I gave them an idea that with the easy deductions they could have their taxes would most probably half yet again!. But heck, when they told me how they were fleeced in Germany…. and of course I hear similar things from colleagues who live in France.
“I have had my french bank with-hold money from my account on numerous occasions over the last 5 years “for security reasons.”
After transferring money to pay an invoice, with bank staff, inside a branch, the transaction was still stopped, and my debit card invalidated, although I had a large positive balance. It took an effort to get it sorted.
Fortunately I carry cards from several different banks.
I am a vulnerable old person, who is obviously being scammed into paying for Avgas and aircraft maintenance. The bank’s AI is there to protect me.:-(
Skydriller and Mooney Driver forget that most French banks, until recently, were still writing in a ledger with ink and quill pen.🙃
skydriller wrote:
I work in an international industry where I am mostly paid in dollars but from various countries.
I’m in a similar situation and can only highly recommend HSBC Premier. They allow you to have accounts in a whole range of countries and currencies and you can transfer money globally with the click of a button. Also, the clients pay into a local account which makes it easier and in many cases cheaper as there are no international transaction costs.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Sometimes I forget how privileged we are with the Swiss banking system. I only noticed when I had to work with other banks how easy banking here is.
Not being in the EU you may have avoided the silly legislation about “customer knowledge” where banks and other financial institutes demand that you answer meaningless questions which purportedly will help stop money laundering?
Some 10 years ago, I sold a piece of my property for about €30,000 and was paid with a money order. When I went to the bank, they refused to accept it unless I could prove that it really was from sale of land. I returned the next day with a copy of the contract which they accepted. While the clerk was working, I commented that I could have faked the contract and he would have been none the wiser. He said that he could call the buyer and check to which I replied that the “buyer” could have been an accomplice. (All real estate transactions in Sweden are registered, but that process takes weeks and would not have helped in this case.) When I had the money in my account and was ready to leave, he asked “you didn’t fake the contract, did you?” My answer was only “you guess.”
Airborne_Again wrote:
Not being in the EU you may have avoided the silly legislation about “customer knowledge” where banks and other financial institutes demand that you answer meaningless questions which purportedly will help stop money laundering?
No, we were in the center of it. You may recall that Swiss banking was for many years considered the one place to go to for “numbered accounts” and similar stuff and they got massive heat under the Obama administration and by the EU to change that. So we have the same laws as you there.
Personally I have a very good relationship with the people who deal with my accounts in the bank I work with. Hence I have been spared this kind of questioning as they know pretty much what is going on around me. If there was anything they would want to know, they know where they can find me. But I also acknowledge that they have to cover their backsides as if not, they get into real trouble really fast.
172driver wrote:
can only highly recommend HSBC Premier.
Ill have a look into that, Thanks.
There are some people who are functionally excluded from the banking system. They aren’t doing anything illegal, but absolutely rely on cash: for example a labourer we had once would be described by Yorkshiremen as “strong in t’ arm but thick in t’ head”. He’d never have a bank account and likely still doesn’t have one. His “current account” were whatever notes he had wadded up in his pocket. He was a hard worker and honourable person, but lived from week to week, paid in cash for labouring jobs, and tended to spend it all in the pub on the weekend.
Opening a bank account in the Isle of Man is a Kafkaesque experience these days due to the KYC and anti money laundering regulations. The kind of people who were born here, and absolutely elegible for a bank account, but left school at 16 with 1 GCSE really struggle with it. Many of these people are employed and make enough money to live, but are excluded from the banking system.
alioth wrote:
Opening a bank account in the Isle of Man is a Kafkaesque experience these days due to the KYC and anti money laundering regulations.
The problem with these things are that more and more the system of policing and prosecution goes from “prove me I’ve done wrong” to proving one’s innocence for the most basic of things.
