The US forced stuff like this - and much more - on other countries, with FATCA.
Just one example: Foreign banks must report all financial activities of Americans to the US. An American official wad asked in an interview if the US would then report financial activities of non-Americans to their home tax authorities. The answer was "lol, no, that would be too much effort".
Not just citizens, it applies to American residents as well. A Swiss citizen friend of mine couldn't open up an account in Switzerland because the banks didn’t want to deal with FACTA and he had an American green card.
> Foreign banks must report all financial activities of Americans to the US. An American official wad asked in an interview if the US would then report
The U.S. predominantly compels banks through FATCA. If a bank wants to do business in America, it has to follow FATCA for Americans abroad. There is, of course, some regulatory co-operation. But to my knowledge, most countries don't directly transmit these data to the U.S.–the banks have to report it instead.
The correct analogy would be a foreign country requiring U.S. banks to send them data on their own citizens abroad. Which, I think, e.g. India could probably do.
> The correct analogy would be a foreign country requiring U.S. banks to send them data on their own citizens abroad. Which, I think, e.g. India could probably do.
India does get information from the US and other countries about Indian residents having accounts (bank, brokerage, etc.) in other countries.
There are agreements across several countries that use CRS (Common Reporting Standard) to report such information to other countries for tax purposes. This is not India or US specific.
>Reporting Mechanism: In countries with Intergovernmental Agreements (IGAs), such as Canada, financial institutions report to local tax authorities, which then share the information with the IRS.
Most countries not just "collect citizenship data", they require you to have a valid non-expired ID, valid non-expired residential registration, a fresh digital photo, verified phone number and a valid tax number. All of that without any US interference.
My crude understanding is that in the 90's, the US controlled basically all the world's large-scale financial clearing network, and after 9/11 declared a holy war against anything that didn't provide visibility to US intelligence (like the surviving medieval Middle Eastern 'Hawala' banking system) and the ability for the US to sanction it on a fine-grained basis.
Since that time, we have grabbed on tighter and tighter, and are finding that the world is starting to seek out a less politically volatile patron for a financial system.
> Banks are required to collect information through “know your customer” rules, but have pushed back against this plan. But Bessent told CNBC, “If Treasury and the banking regulators say it’s their job, it’s their job.”
Well I can't see this ending well. It's either more invasive KYC or it's a push towards debanking people out of favor with the government again.
It s the sheer horror we have to live with in the EU. The intrusiveness of banks is beyond this world. As soon as you re a little bit off the rails, say you lived in different countries or own real estate in another country, all he'll breaks loose. Endless KYC, banks rejecting you, making pointless snitch reports to the various IRSes you have to respond to (there are several if you live in one country but have revenues from a company or real estate in another), etc.
Endless waste of time, red tape, administratrivia...
See that's the thing people are upset about though - the fact that the documents you need are either an original certified copy of a thin sheet of paper from whatever random backwater you were born in's local government (birth cert), or an expensive time-consuming document that needs to be renewed on top of that (passport).
In general, the people against these kinds of things aren't against the simple extra check of something that's theoretically already true (registered to vote / ID at voting place, citizenship at banks, etc). They're against forcing people to provide arcane, asterisk-ridden (including married women! a large demographic!) documents.
If we just had a normal federal ID system like a normal country, where you just got one mailed to you when your kid was born just like their social security card manages to do, then this would all be much more fine. But noooo god forbid we be normal for once. Much better to keep using random bullshit in place of a national ID.
Having been through this in the UK, what people want is:
- a rigorous secure biometric identity system
- .. but not for citizens, only for immigrants.
(one of the weird consequences of this is that the final stage of naturalization was to send back / destroy your secure ID: https://www.gov.uk/biometric-residence-permits ; we now have a purely online "share code" system, which everyone is much more scared of because you have no way to contradict the computer)
Perhaps Bessent has forgotten that Chevron Doctrine was overturned and now courts get the final say on this instead of the federal agencies. Double edged sword
Incorrect, banks in other countries require this data solely because the US is the only country that taxes its citizens even outside its borders. Compliance with FATCA is the only reason why most banks literally have a checkbox in their application forms specifically to state that you do not hold US citizenship in any form. Some Swiss banks even outright forbid US clients. Dealing with FATCA is just another logistical nightmare for most banks.
Since others are not saying it, enforcing this will immediately cause havoc as any number of citizens do not have ready access to any document proving citizenship.
(Non-US people note that this is likely a major difference between the US and your country. The US does not compulsorily provide proof of citizenship to its citizens that can be used at places where one is typically asked to prove one's citizenship.)
Bessent notes here that Real ID would not be considered valid ID for this purpose, which sounds like it will have the same problems as the SAVE act. This could mean debanking anyone who has changed their name and does not have a notarized copy of the name change certificate, and most people who do not drive.
(I am not sure how it would handle minors, who generally do not have any photo ID. Would they have to come in to provide ID when they turn 18?)
The underlying idea is fine, but it creates problems when combined with the reluctance to issue any kind of national ID.
> If they don't have documentation, are they citizens?
Yes. As OP said, "anyone who has changed their name and does not have a notarized copy of the name change certificate, and most people who do not drive." Note that the first category includes many married women.
If the US Constitution is to have force as the core document foundational to the governance of the US, it is important for its clear text to have the force of law.
An executive agency creating new requirements for citizenship has the effect of overriding the Constitution, which brings into question what are the controlling documents for the country.
Yeah I don't think people are really fully appreciating the scope of this, because it means people would essentially have to have a passport to open a bank account.
It's very dark. I tend to be libertarian about these things and feel like it's none of the government's business. Get a warrant and do your investigations if you want to prove someone is a foreigner up to no good. There is no real problem unless you're xenophobic or racist.
So I don't agree the "underlying idea is fine" at all. This is a step further though, by putting an administrative and financial burden on people to have a bank account.
The fact this is normal in other places in the world doesn't make it ok to me either — two wrongs don't make a right. And in any event many other places are more socialized than the US, so there isn't the same kind of burden on many places as there would be in the US. It would be one thing if the administration were bending over backwards to provide public healthcare, expand education and public research, but they're doing the opposite.
> I don't agree the "underlying idea is fine" at all
I gave you a shout out! :-P
> the reluctance to issue any kind of national ID
Americans have tended to resist this kind of surveillance (when done by the government). Honestly, because it's not necessary. It doesn't make sense to tax 350 million people when DOJ usually doesn't even go after the known big fish. Or when companies can openly violate e.g. money transfer laws at vast scale until they get rich enough to get the laws changed in their favor.
This feels like the kind of thing that will blow up if they implement it and then have to be kicked down the road forever, like RealID. Old people know that the initial RealID deadline was before Barack Obama's election.
You are required to prove your citizenship to the government (by proxy of your bank or otherwise). The government lacks a unified document of identity which would by law act as a proof of citizenship, and reserves its right to call any other document it is issuing to be “insufficient”.
- can't get a job without a local bank account
- can't get a bank account without a residential address
- can't get a (rented) residential address without proof of employment
- getting a local phone number may also depend on / be required for any of these steps
There's usually "fixer" services which help people get out of this mess, but it can be a real problem even for 100% legitimate professional class immigrant workers.
The US and the UK have the unique situation of backing themselves into national ID requirements without ever actually issuing national ID, which makes for stupid outcomes.
Most HN users aren't even posting during Anglophone hours though [0]. Based on the style of English as well as the type of post content, HN engagement seems to be increasingly filled with DACH and CEE residents during American mornings (which is ironic as YC doesn't follow GDPR and retains full rights to use HN comments as they so wish in perpetuity).
Maybe, but most HNers didn't work in high finance which messes with your sleep cycle :').
I'm still processing the dataset but there is a significant shift in HN usage from aligning with average American hours to non-American hours over the past few years.
Japan is well known in their acceptance of foreigners. Their economy is sputtering, the population is aging, and no matter how many economists tell the politicians they need to invigorate their economy they would rather build shitty robots.
Japan continues to have an HDI comparable to similarly sized France [0] despite having almost double it's GDP and a median age comparable to both Germany and Italy, and a TFR comparable to other European states [1].
The obvious difference is that the US, more or less by deliberate design, had a remarkably lax approach to visa overstays and illegal border crossings for decades. This resulted in a population of more than 10 million "unauthorized" residents.
Any policy that suddenly pulls the rug on them is notable precisely because we created the problem (or not-a-problem, depending on your leanings) in the first place.
Other countries also provide free and mandated forms of identification without all of the hassle and bullshit we have to go through in the US.
I spent most of my time in Texas using either my passport or my old forms of ID because my schedule never aligned with the DMV and I didn't have a driver's license to surrender.
There's a large portion of citizens here that would not have valid or current identification in order to open up an account nor the means to immediately obtain it.
This data collection is not for immigrants. most people they just come, work and leave. Sooner or later all those Maga clowns understand, this is all about controlling them.wait for the results until they integrate everything into Palantir.
The goal is to de-bank any opposition to the government. It starts with an easy out group like immigrants. Then more and more groups will get de-banked or otherwise disenfranchised.
It starts with an easy out group like "actual criminals".
The groundwork for this crap was laid in the 1870s when they were going after the klan, then the 1920s bootleggers, then the 1940s-50s mobsters, 1980s drug traffickers, 2000s terrorists, etc, etc. Every step of the way people cheered.
People seriously underestimate how much easier it is to open a bank account in the US compared to most other countries. Especially with how many states give out government-issued IDs to non-residents/non-citizens (16 states + Washington DC).
It's estimated that between $250 billion and 500 billion is laundered through US banks every year, though some portion of that is via correspondent banking and not just individual account money muleing.
And this just collects that information. It doesn't actually stop people from opening these accounts or shut them down.
> It's estimated that between $250 billion and 500 billion is laundered through US banks every year, though some portion of that is via correspondent banking and not just individual account money muleing.
The money laundering is not happening through consumer deposit accounts (I've never heard your term money mueling and it's almost definitely not people moving $10,000 at a time if that's what you are suggesting).
It is wanton disingenuity to think that the goal of this rule is prevention of money laundering.
I didn't say that was the goal. I explicitly said that it wouldn't do anything about it. Just that it happens.
And absolutely it happens, particularly with networks of accounts connected to China. Just because you've never heard of it doesn't mean that it doesn't happen. FinCEN has been publicly chasing this down for years. Although hawala networks are also a big source of that not mainly personal banking.
Also you're missing the forest for the trees here. Money laundering will most often happen through business bank accounts but a large number of business account holders also have personal accounts at the same bank and link them out of convenience.
Personal ID is also required to open a business bank account. This requirement will likely apply to those as well.
> Also you're missing the forest for the trees here
I see what you're saying - I am just trying to convey that the $250 billion dollars being laundered is commercial. It's hard to imagine how anyone can come close to those figures by using consumer accounts, linked or not.
Ok agreed. So why? If there is an issue with foreigners then why is anyone exempted from reporting BOI? I have foreigners in my entities, surely the gov wants to know about them?
The money laundering won't go away. It'll just move to administrations-approved money laundering vehicles like crypto. And needlessly disrupt or ruin the lives of millions. Neat.
> But that doesn’t satisfy Bessent. “Why can unknown foreign nationals come and open a bank account?”
To do business obviously. Are you seriously telling me the government, armed with Palantir, can’t already flag money laundering? Why is an “unknown” in the country in the first place given this admin’s extremely hostile view towards immigrants?
Don't let commenters convince you this is normal. This is a concerted effort by Republicans to win the midterm elections. It's a very old Republican tactic: disenfranchise poor ethnic communities that would vote Democrat.
> The planned EO is one more plank in President Donald Trump’s broader effort to tie his immigration policy to collection of information in the United States, including for voting and Census efforts.
As usual for a Republican agenda, it hurts the economy in order to achieve its ideological goals.
> In addition to legal questions, some policy experts and banks have warned about damage to the economy if people are denied access to the banking system and deposit accounts, as well as potentially big increases in administrative costs for banks. [...] Allowing noncitizens, including undocumented immigrants, to legally open bank accounts using documentation, such as an ITIN, means they can pay taxes and avoid being part of the “unbanked” existing in a purely cash economy. Being unbanked is often associated with less ability to move up the social ladder and contribute to economic growth.
Which is how most of the world does it. What is interesting is that in 2023 the CFPB/DOJ started threatening to sue banks if they relied on immigration status/duration of stay to approve loans, which was generally regarded as threatening banks not to consider immigration status for loans. There is a risk that if they use this information the next president in the white house may try to sue them, however if they don't use immigration information then they'll be left stranded with a bunch of bad loans. It's probably better that they have this information but it is a bit of a lose-lose
I cannot get to that link, here is another one. The main part to remember is "may". The cost of this process could prevent the order from being issued:
> Dissuading people from banking was "one of the more predictable outcomes," Braunegg said, adding that could include people ... and dual citizens who are "wary of cross-border reporting."
An interesting aspect to changes like this is that they demonstrate the silos and fissures between various government functions. There isn't already a standard intra-government API that for an identify returns the relationship person has to the US government (i.e. citizen, legal resident, visa like student or H1B?
Well, there isn't a national ID system, partly because the citizens don't want to be on the wrong end of when that API says "no". I'm not sure anywhere has such a fully available live system, rather than relying on people bringing documents in to the bank.
The live update would add an extra element of terror to the system, of course.
What input would you use? There's no unified government ID.
You could probably look up a name and birth date and establish if a citizen exists with that information, I guess. You could check social security (which I'm not sure definitively indicates status) and see the same for that. But it's a very messy system in general.
My name is actually different in a few government databases - in one I have two middle names, in the other two last names. Just random clerical stuff like that is common.
If there's not a table somewhere maintained by the US government that associates social security number with citizenship status, that's because a choice was made by the government not to do that. It would be a simple enough thing to do.
(yes, checking against name / DOB / ssn always has some inherent messiness to it)
It's definitely a choice, because we've avoided having a real standardized identity system run by the government for so long.
But there are reasons for people to oppose it on both sides of the aisle (states rights, immigration views, anti federalism, libertarians) so it's a pretty hard task. Maybe this admin could try it as an immigration security measure and get some support that way but I have my doubts.
> You could check social security (which I'm not sure definitively indicates status) and see the same for that.
It doesn't. When I naturalized, I had to schedule an in person appointment at the Social Security offices to change my status in their systems. There was a time gap between me being American, me having a passport, me being recorded as American as far as SS was concerned and me having a SS card that didn't have caveats written across it.
The forcing function on my side was to avoid problems when changing jobs. I don't know what problems there might be claiming benefits that you are entitled to, but if you didn't have the change of status registered, that might delay things until you do. If you did change your status but didn't get a card, you can get a replacement one that won't have the text.
One of the things I was concerned for months until I got the new card is the federal government querying the social security database looking for immigrants or discrepancies with any of their other databases and not caring that the discrepancies are of their own making. Being a naturalized citizen with an accent, I keep traveling with my passport for internal trips.
The additional 165 dollars to get a passport for the first time is quite steep for a document that seems to become more and more mandatory. Papier, bitte.
Countries with national IDs charge you to replace one if it gets lost, and it usually costs less than 10 USD.
I'm also not quite sure how you get a passport without a bank account. Can you pay in cash? Even if you can, I'm guessing that's only at certain offices, which adds to the hassle and cost.
You can't guarantee every citizen has a passport, so if you were running this as a bank or an employer or so on an API that only took passport information would not be super helpful. When I think of a unified ID I think of a number everyone gets at birth tied to an ID card they can show you. Social security is closest to this but the cards say they're not supposed to be used for identification and it's a cludge.
Just because you own a supercar doesn't mean you daily drive it.
That stuff most certainly exists. It's just not for cog #897345673847456 to use in an above the table on the record capacity as part of their run of the mill daily job duties.
We don't really have a standard way to definitively say "I am a citizen" in the US. It's all kinda ad-hoc, like most of the rest of our ID system. Closest thing's a birth certificate[EDIT: or naturalization papers, of course, for immigrants], I guess, but that's a pain in the ass for anyone who's had a name change (lots of married women, notably) because then they need more documents.
Having a social security or other tax-related ID has sufficed for banks so far, which doesn't guarantee the holder is a citizen but does demonstrate enough relevant "status" with the government for banking to probably go smoothly.
Digging ourselves deeper into our already awful decentralized partially-privatized (the CRAs, mostly) identification system by expanding the set of things we have to prove in even more circumstances is not a good thing.
>We don't really have a standard way to definitively say "I am a citizen" in the US.
In most countries of the world, the best way to prove your citizenship is to apply for a visa. That is you world apply for a US visa and get an official rejection, because US citizens don't need/cannot get a visa, and the rejection document would be the proof of citizenship.
.. that seems extremely dangerous, because I wouldn't trust that refusal to not raise red flags for the rest of your life. I've not heard of people routinely doing this or announcing it as a valid method of proof of citizenship which they accept.
I've opened several bank accounts for my child. All they needed was the social security number and my photo id (and maybe my social security number too).
Banks are cracking down on PO boxes and CMRAs as the residential address for their clients. It's fine as the mailing address, but people who travel abroad full time may not have a permanent residential address.
Right now, you can choose to use a friend/family address, or you can pay a company to provide a residential address for you.
We should be able to say "I have no permanent residential address since I'm travelling, please send all mail to this CRMA.", but that isn't a supported scenario today.
This all gets complicated for full-time US travellers abroad who may spend all year outside of the country, but they still have to have domicile in some state even when they don't have a permanent address in any state.
I looked into some of this stuff when we were moving across the country and temporarily had no actual permanent address (living out of AirBnBs) including no home under contract, and it would have been very nice to set up a PO Box and local bank account.
I couldn't figure out a way to do it. Even looking at services aimed at people living in RVs didn't seem like it was going to work. For one thing, I couldn't get a PO Box without a home address, LOL.
This seems to be a debanking scheme. Debanking schemes are just a way to steal peoples savings of course. Deutsche Bank did the same from 1933 to 1945 in Germany.
The US forced stuff like this - and much more - on other countries, with FATCA.
Just one example: Foreign banks must report all financial activities of Americans to the US. An American official wad asked in an interview if the US would then report financial activities of non-Americans to their home tax authorities. The answer was "lol, no, that would be too much effort".
I am having a moment of Schadenfreude...
Not just citizens, it applies to American residents as well. A Swiss citizen friend of mine couldn't open up an account in Switzerland because the banks didn’t want to deal with FACTA and he had an American green card.
> Foreign banks must report all financial activities of Americans to the US. An American official wad asked in an interview if the US would then report
The U.S. predominantly compels banks through FATCA. If a bank wants to do business in America, it has to follow FATCA for Americans abroad. There is, of course, some regulatory co-operation. But to my knowledge, most countries don't directly transmit these data to the U.S.–the banks have to report it instead.
The correct analogy would be a foreign country requiring U.S. banks to send them data on their own citizens abroad. Which, I think, e.g. India could probably do.
> The correct analogy would be a foreign country requiring U.S. banks to send them data on their own citizens abroad. Which, I think, e.g. India could probably do.
India does get information from the US and other countries about Indian residents having accounts (bank, brokerage, etc.) in other countries.
There are agreements across several countries that use CRS (Common Reporting Standard) to report such information to other countries for tax purposes. This is not India or US specific.
>Reporting Mechanism: In countries with Intergovernmental Agreements (IGAs), such as Canada, financial institutions report to local tax authorities, which then share the information with the IRS.
>US forced
"Forced"?
You're _way_ everestimating US influence.
Most countries not just "collect citizenship data", they require you to have a valid non-expired ID, valid non-expired residential registration, a fresh digital photo, verified phone number and a valid tax number. All of that without any US interference.
My crude understanding is that in the 90's, the US controlled basically all the world's large-scale financial clearing network, and after 9/11 declared a holy war against anything that didn't provide visibility to US intelligence (like the surviving medieval Middle Eastern 'Hawala' banking system) and the ability for the US to sanction it on a fine-grained basis.
Since that time, we have grabbed on tighter and tighter, and are finding that the world is starting to seek out a less politically volatile patron for a financial system.
I'm an immigrant to the US who still has a bank account in my home country.
After I told that bank I'd moved abroad, they required me to fill out paperwork for FATCA and give them my US SSN.
I also have to self-report all foreign accounts and their balances to the IRS. The penalties for not doing so are severe.
> Banks are required to collect information through “know your customer” rules, but have pushed back against this plan. But Bessent told CNBC, “If Treasury and the banking regulators say it’s their job, it’s their job.”
Well I can't see this ending well. It's either more invasive KYC or it's a push towards debanking people out of favor with the government again.
It s the sheer horror we have to live with in the EU. The intrusiveness of banks is beyond this world. As soon as you re a little bit off the rails, say you lived in different countries or own real estate in another country, all he'll breaks loose. Endless KYC, banks rejecting you, making pointless snitch reports to the various IRSes you have to respond to (there are several if you live in one country but have revenues from a company or real estate in another), etc.
Endless waste of time, red tape, administratrivia...
All for exactly nothing.
EU banks mandate similar KYC as well like a passport or national ID (something we do not have but need).
See that's the thing people are upset about though - the fact that the documents you need are either an original certified copy of a thin sheet of paper from whatever random backwater you were born in's local government (birth cert), or an expensive time-consuming document that needs to be renewed on top of that (passport).
In general, the people against these kinds of things aren't against the simple extra check of something that's theoretically already true (registered to vote / ID at voting place, citizenship at banks, etc). They're against forcing people to provide arcane, asterisk-ridden (including married women! a large demographic!) documents.
If we just had a normal federal ID system like a normal country, where you just got one mailed to you when your kid was born just like their social security card manages to do, then this would all be much more fine. But noooo god forbid we be normal for once. Much better to keep using random bullshit in place of a national ID.
Having been through this in the UK, what people want is:
(one of the weird consequences of this is that the final stage of naturalization was to send back / destroy your secure ID: https://www.gov.uk/biometric-residence-permits ; we now have a purely online "share code" system, which everyone is much more scared of because you have no way to contradict the computer).. and some also refuse to do business with Americans because of the additional reporting requirements!
That's due to US regulation imposed on them under FATCA in not additional check due to EU rules.
Perhaps Bessent has forgotten that Chevron Doctrine was overturned and now courts get the final say on this instead of the federal agencies. Double edged sword
Came here to comment "Loper Bright". Glad you got here first.
A number of countries require this info already - it is a stretch for the US, but relatively common overall.
It’s probably both of what you’re worried about.
Notably, it’s likely a reaction to the original ‘no gun stores, no porn, etc’ rules which banks have defacto had for awhile.
worse they are requiring this data on behalf of the US to assert that they have no obligation to pay US taxes.
Incorrect, banks in other countries require this data solely because the US is the only country that taxes its citizens even outside its borders. Compliance with FATCA is the only reason why most banks literally have a checkbox in their application forms specifically to state that you do not hold US citizenship in any form. Some Swiss banks even outright forbid US clients. Dealing with FATCA is just another logistical nightmare for most banks.
Since others are not saying it, enforcing this will immediately cause havoc as any number of citizens do not have ready access to any document proving citizenship.
(Non-US people note that this is likely a major difference between the US and your country. The US does not compulsorily provide proof of citizenship to its citizens that can be used at places where one is typically asked to prove one's citizenship.)
Bessent notes here that Real ID would not be considered valid ID for this purpose, which sounds like it will have the same problems as the SAVE act. This could mean debanking anyone who has changed their name and does not have a notarized copy of the name change certificate, and most people who do not drive.
(I am not sure how it would handle minors, who generally do not have any photo ID. Would they have to come in to provide ID when they turn 18?)
The underlying idea is fine, but it creates problems when combined with the reluctance to issue any kind of national ID.
> enforcing this will immediately cause havoc as any number of citizens do not have ready access to any document proving citizenship
Yes, that is obviously the intention of this system.
> that is obviously the intention of this system
I'm genuinely unsure which way the partisan tilt would lean on American citizens who get unbanked.
> which way the partisan tilt would lean on American citizens who get unbanked.
Obviously the court of Fox public opinion would examine their social media to determine if they're woke or Hispanic before deciding this.
If they don't have documentation, are they citizens?
> If they don't have documentation, are they citizens?
Yes. As OP said, "anyone who has changed their name and does not have a notarized copy of the name change certificate, and most people who do not drive." Note that the first category includes many married women.
It is very, very important to the national psyche of both the UK and the US that the answer to this question can be "yes".
Can you for an outsider expand on this argument. I’m not saying you’re wrong, but why is that?
If the US Constitution is to have force as the core document foundational to the governance of the US, it is important for its clear text to have the force of law.
An executive agency creating new requirements for citizenship has the effect of overriding the Constitution, which brings into question what are the controlling documents for the country.
Yeah I don't think people are really fully appreciating the scope of this, because it means people would essentially have to have a passport to open a bank account.
It's very dark. I tend to be libertarian about these things and feel like it's none of the government's business. Get a warrant and do your investigations if you want to prove someone is a foreigner up to no good. There is no real problem unless you're xenophobic or racist.
So I don't agree the "underlying idea is fine" at all. This is a step further though, by putting an administrative and financial burden on people to have a bank account.
The fact this is normal in other places in the world doesn't make it ok to me either — two wrongs don't make a right. And in any event many other places are more socialized than the US, so there isn't the same kind of burden on many places as there would be in the US. It would be one thing if the administration were bending over backwards to provide public healthcare, expand education and public research, but they're doing the opposite.
> I don't agree the "underlying idea is fine" at all
I gave you a shout out! :-P
> the reluctance to issue any kind of national ID
Americans have tended to resist this kind of surveillance (when done by the government). Honestly, because it's not necessary. It doesn't make sense to tax 350 million people when DOJ usually doesn't even go after the known big fish. Or when companies can openly violate e.g. money transfer laws at vast scale until they get rich enough to get the laws changed in their favor.
This feels like the kind of thing that will blow up if they implement it and then have to be kicked down the road forever, like RealID. Old people know that the initial RealID deadline was before Barack Obama's election.
Catch-22 lives on.
You are required to prove your citizenship to the government (by proxy of your bank or otherwise). The government lacks a unified document of identity which would by law act as a proof of citizenship, and reserves its right to call any other document it is issuing to be “insufficient”.
Pretty normal in other places: Most banks in Japan are for Japanese customers. Foreign users have quite a few hoops to jump through.
Several places also have a "hostile loop":
There's usually "fixer" services which help people get out of this mess, but it can be a real problem even for 100% legitimate professional class immigrant workers.Like most things on HN it's only ever a moral panic when the U.S. (or U.K.) does it.
The US and the UK have the unique situation of backing themselves into national ID requirements without ever actually issuing national ID, which makes for stupid outcomes.
Was just reading that headline the other day. Economic darling Japan emerges from the Lost Decades with perfect banking policy.
Compared to the effect of Plaza Accords the influence of banking policy on economic development is within statistical error.
It seems predictable that people on a mostly English-speaking forum will be most concerned with stuff that the US and UK are doing.
Most HN users aren't even posting during Anglophone hours though [0]. Based on the style of English as well as the type of post content, HN engagement seems to be increasingly filled with DACH and CEE residents during American mornings (which is ironic as YC doesn't follow GDPR and retains full rights to use HN comments as they so wish in perpetuity).
[0] - https://huggingface.co/datasets/open-index/hacker-news
> during Anglophone hours though
I suspect I mostly post outside American working hours because I am (a) working then and (b) a night owl.
Maybe, but most HNers didn't work in high finance which messes with your sleep cycle :').
I'm still processing the dataset but there is a significant shift in HN usage from aligning with average American hours to non-American hours over the past few years.
And most HN users bashing the practice will defend the practice when another country does it.
Japan is well known in their acceptance of foreigners. Their economy is sputtering, the population is aging, and no matter how many economists tell the politicians they need to invigorate their economy they would rather build shitty robots.
Japan continues to have an HDI comparable to similarly sized France [0] despite having almost double it's GDP and a median age comparable to both Germany and Italy, and a TFR comparable to other European states [1].
[0] - https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/country-insights#/ranks
[1] - https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?most_rec...
The obvious difference is that the US, more or less by deliberate design, had a remarkably lax approach to visa overstays and illegal border crossings for decades. This resulted in a population of more than 10 million "unauthorized" residents.
Any policy that suddenly pulls the rug on them is notable precisely because we created the problem (or not-a-problem, depending on your leanings) in the first place.
Other countries also provide free and mandated forms of identification without all of the hassle and bullshit we have to go through in the US.
I spent most of my time in Texas using either my passport or my old forms of ID because my schedule never aligned with the DMV and I didn't have a driver's license to surrender.
There's a large portion of citizens here that would not have valid or current identification in order to open up an account nor the means to immediately obtain it.
Having opened accounts in two different European countries, the more surprising thing here for me is that the US banks _didn’t_ already do this.
This data collection is not for immigrants. most people they just come, work and leave. Sooner or later all those Maga clowns understand, this is all about controlling them.wait for the results until they integrate everything into Palantir.
I already have to upload my real ID and had to hop on a video call to show my face + ID for one bank.
I don’t really understand this. We already run KYC / AML. Is that not good enough for some reason?
Banks are to be ICE now.
The goal is to de-bank any opposition to the government. It starts with an easy out group like immigrants. Then more and more groups will get de-banked or otherwise disenfranchised.
>The goal is to de-bank any opposition to the government. It starts with an easy out group like immigrants.
Or an easy out group like the Freedom Convoy protest truckers.
I did not realize that the number of Freedom Convoy truckers was roughly the same as number of immigrants. That is a big issue!
It starts with an easy out group like "actual criminals".
The groundwork for this crap was laid in the 1870s when they were going after the klan, then the 1920s bootleggers, then the 1940s-50s mobsters, 1980s drug traffickers, 2000s terrorists, etc, etc. Every step of the way people cheered.
People seriously underestimate how much easier it is to open a bank account in the US compared to most other countries. Especially with how many states give out government-issued IDs to non-residents/non-citizens (16 states + Washington DC).
It's estimated that between $250 billion and 500 billion is laundered through US banks every year, though some portion of that is via correspondent banking and not just individual account money muleing.
And this just collects that information. It doesn't actually stop people from opening these accounts or shut them down.
> It's estimated that between $250 billion and 500 billion is laundered through US banks every year, though some portion of that is via correspondent banking and not just individual account money muleing.
The money laundering is not happening through consumer deposit accounts (I've never heard your term money mueling and it's almost definitely not people moving $10,000 at a time if that's what you are suggesting).
It is wanton disingenuity to think that the goal of this rule is prevention of money laundering.
I didn't say that was the goal. I explicitly said that it wouldn't do anything about it. Just that it happens.
And absolutely it happens, particularly with networks of accounts connected to China. Just because you've never heard of it doesn't mean that it doesn't happen. FinCEN has been publicly chasing this down for years. Although hawala networks are also a big source of that not mainly personal banking.
Also you're missing the forest for the trees here. Money laundering will most often happen through business bank accounts but a large number of business account holders also have personal accounts at the same bank and link them out of convenience.
Personal ID is also required to open a business bank account. This requirement will likely apply to those as well.
> Also you're missing the forest for the trees here
I see what you're saying - I am just trying to convey that the $250 billion dollars being laundered is commercial. It's hard to imagine how anyone can come close to those figures by using consumer accounts, linked or not.
So why doesn’t existing AML catch this? You also mention FinCen which Trump paused so why not just reinstate that?
He didn't "pause FinCEN", he stopped the reporting requirement of BOI for US Citizens/Companies.
Ok agreed. So why? If there is an issue with foreigners then why is anyone exempted from reporting BOI? I have foreigners in my entities, surely the gov wants to know about them?
The money laundering won't go away. It'll just move to administrations-approved money laundering vehicles like crypto. And needlessly disrupt or ruin the lives of millions. Neat.
What's the solution, no laws? Since laws just shift the venue for the crime in your view?
That's covered in the article
Is it really though?
> But that doesn’t satisfy Bessent. “Why can unknown foreign nationals come and open a bank account?”
To do business obviously. Are you seriously telling me the government, armed with Palantir, can’t already flag money laundering? Why is an “unknown” in the country in the first place given this admin’s extremely hostile view towards immigrants?
It's because certain banks like Bank of America will explicitly take business from undocumented immigrants, knowingly so.
As a quick example, I know for a fact they accept expired visas as ID proof to open an account.
Don't let commenters convince you this is normal. This is a concerted effort by Republicans to win the midterm elections. It's a very old Republican tactic: disenfranchise poor ethnic communities that would vote Democrat.
> The planned EO is one more plank in President Donald Trump’s broader effort to tie his immigration policy to collection of information in the United States, including for voting and Census efforts.
As usual for a Republican agenda, it hurts the economy in order to achieve its ideological goals.
> In addition to legal questions, some policy experts and banks have warned about damage to the economy if people are denied access to the banking system and deposit accounts, as well as potentially big increases in administrative costs for banks. [...] Allowing noncitizens, including undocumented immigrants, to legally open bank accounts using documentation, such as an ITIN, means they can pay taxes and avoid being part of the “unbanked” existing in a purely cash economy. Being unbanked is often associated with less ability to move up the social ladder and contribute to economic growth.
How is this not normal? Don't most / all European countries require the same?
Which is how most of the world does it. What is interesting is that in 2023 the CFPB/DOJ started threatening to sue banks if they relied on immigration status/duration of stay to approve loans, which was generally regarded as threatening banks not to consider immigration status for loans. There is a risk that if they use this information the next president in the white house may try to sue them, however if they don't use immigration information then they'll be left stranded with a bunch of bad loans. It's probably better that they have this information but it is a bit of a lose-lose
> Which is how most of the world does it.
That's not persuasive. America does a lot of things different from most of the world, and they're not inherently wrong for doing so.
The rest of your comment makes an interesting point, though.
I cannot get to that link, here is another one. The main part to remember is "may". The cost of this process could prevent the order from being issued:
https://www.businessinsider.com/banks-requirement-citizenshi...
An interesting quote:
> Dissuading people from banking was "one of the more predictable outcomes," Braunegg said, adding that could include people ... and dual citizens who are "wary of cross-border reporting."
An interesting aspect to changes like this is that they demonstrate the silos and fissures between various government functions. There isn't already a standard intra-government API that for an identify returns the relationship person has to the US government (i.e. citizen, legal resident, visa like student or H1B?
Well, there isn't a national ID system, partly because the citizens don't want to be on the wrong end of when that API says "no". I'm not sure anywhere has such a fully available live system, rather than relying on people bringing documents in to the bank.
The live update would add an extra element of terror to the system, of course.
Edit: actually the UK system is pretty much this, except it's a token rather than an API, presumably to prevent you looking up random people without their consent: https://www.gov.uk/prove-right-to-work/get-a-share-code-onli...
Note that is for right to work, not right to reside, neither of which is the same thing as eligible for a bank account.
What input would you use? There's no unified government ID.
You could probably look up a name and birth date and establish if a citizen exists with that information, I guess. You could check social security (which I'm not sure definitively indicates status) and see the same for that. But it's a very messy system in general.
My name is actually different in a few government databases - in one I have two middle names, in the other two last names. Just random clerical stuff like that is common.
If there's not a table somewhere maintained by the US government that associates social security number with citizenship status, that's because a choice was made by the government not to do that. It would be a simple enough thing to do.
(yes, checking against name / DOB / ssn always has some inherent messiness to it)
It's definitely a choice, because we've avoided having a real standardized identity system run by the government for so long.
But there are reasons for people to oppose it on both sides of the aisle (states rights, immigration views, anti federalism, libertarians) so it's a pretty hard task. Maybe this admin could try it as an immigration security measure and get some support that way but I have my doubts.
> You could check social security (which I'm not sure definitively indicates status) and see the same for that.
It doesn't. When I naturalized, I had to schedule an in person appointment at the Social Security offices to change my status in their systems. There was a time gap between me being American, me having a passport, me being recorded as American as far as SS was concerned and me having a SS card that didn't have caveats written across it.
> me being recorded as American as far as SS was concerned and me having a SS card that didn't have caveats written across it
I naturalized over a decade ago and just realised this is still on my social-security card.
Do I actually have to do anything about it before I go to claim benefits?
The forcing function on my side was to avoid problems when changing jobs. I don't know what problems there might be claiming benefits that you are entitled to, but if you didn't have the change of status registered, that might delay things until you do. If you did change your status but didn't get a card, you can get a replacement one that won't have the text.
One of the things I was concerned for months until I got the new card is the federal government querying the social security database looking for immigrants or discrepancies with any of their other databases and not caring that the discrepancies are of their own making. Being a naturalized citizen with an accent, I keep traveling with my passport for internal trips.
> What input would you use? There's no unified government ID.
Isn't a passport a unified government ID?
The additional 165 dollars to get a passport for the first time is quite steep for a document that seems to become more and more mandatory. Papier, bitte.
Countries with national IDs charge you to replace one if it gets lost, and it usually costs less than 10 USD.
I'm also not quite sure how you get a passport without a bank account. Can you pay in cash? Even if you can, I'm guessing that's only at certain offices, which adds to the hassle and cost.
You can't guarantee every citizen has a passport, so if you were running this as a bank or an employer or so on an API that only took passport information would not be super helpful. When I think of a unified ID I think of a number everyone gets at birth tied to an ID card they can show you. Social security is closest to this but the cards say they're not supposed to be used for identification and it's a cludge.
Just because you own a supercar doesn't mean you daily drive it.
That stuff most certainly exists. It's just not for cog #897345673847456 to use in an above the table on the record capacity as part of their run of the mill daily job duties.
I am surprised that this isn't already part of KYC.
We don't really have a standard way to definitively say "I am a citizen" in the US. It's all kinda ad-hoc, like most of the rest of our ID system. Closest thing's a birth certificate[EDIT: or naturalization papers, of course, for immigrants], I guess, but that's a pain in the ass for anyone who's had a name change (lots of married women, notably) because then they need more documents.
Having a social security or other tax-related ID has sufficed for banks so far, which doesn't guarantee the holder is a citizen but does demonstrate enough relevant "status" with the government for banking to probably go smoothly.
Digging ourselves deeper into our already awful decentralized partially-privatized (the CRAs, mostly) identification system by expanding the set of things we have to prove in even more circumstances is not a good thing.
>We don't really have a standard way to definitively say "I am a citizen" in the US.
In most countries of the world, the best way to prove your citizenship is to apply for a visa. That is you world apply for a US visa and get an official rejection, because US citizens don't need/cannot get a visa, and the rejection document would be the proof of citizenship.
.. that seems extremely dangerous, because I wouldn't trust that refusal to not raise red flags for the rest of your life. I've not heard of people routinely doing this or announcing it as a valid method of proof of citizenship which they accept.
I needed my birth certificate to open my first bank account. Although that's because I was a minor.
I've opened several bank accounts for my child. All they needed was the social security number and my photo id (and maybe my social security number too).
So can they stop being so anal about “home addresses” so people traveling abroad for a few months don’t have to stress?
> can they stop being so anal about “home addresses” so people traveling abroad for a few months don’t have to stress?
P.O. or private mail box.
I'm not who you replied to.
Banks are cracking down on PO boxes and CMRAs as the residential address for their clients. It's fine as the mailing address, but people who travel abroad full time may not have a permanent residential address.
Right now, you can choose to use a friend/family address, or you can pay a company to provide a residential address for you.
We should be able to say "I have no permanent residential address since I'm travelling, please send all mail to this CRMA.", but that isn't a supported scenario today.
This all gets complicated for full-time US travellers abroad who may spend all year outside of the country, but they still have to have domicile in some state even when they don't have a permanent address in any state.
I looked into some of this stuff when we were moving across the country and temporarily had no actual permanent address (living out of AirBnBs) including no home under contract, and it would have been very nice to set up a PO Box and local bank account.
I couldn't figure out a way to do it. Even looking at services aimed at people living in RVs didn't seem like it was going to work. For one thing, I couldn't get a PO Box without a home address, LOL.
That's a great way to get your bank account shut down and your balance mailed to your last known residential address.
Patriot act paranoia.
This seems to be a debanking scheme. Debanking schemes are just a way to steal peoples savings of course. Deutsche Bank did the same from 1933 to 1945 in Germany.
Minus points? We would all be wise to learn from history. https://www.ushmm.org/m/pdfs/Publication_OP_2003-01.pdf