Maybe that was a true when a bank was a private business and you could reasonably live without it. Today they are effectively a branch of the government and your life would be seriously impaired.
For example, where does your employer setup direct deposit? How do you apply for a mortgage and demonstrate assets?
If society relies on technology then you need it to participate. Yes you can still breathe without access to transportation, but you can’t work in the economy. In 1940 car or bus access was a luxury because normal people got along fine without one. That’s why it’s misleading to say increasing car access is an better standard of living. It’s actually an increase in the cost to participate in life.
So yes banking must be a right. Or alternatively we could strengthen cash rights (reduce technology) with legal protections to qualify for loans, etc. But that won’t happen.
So it’s effectively a jail sentence, and that’s fine for people who break social rules, but we have built up a whole justice system for applying them. When government pretends taking away your bank is anything less serious, they just want to sidestep due process.
It's not government taking it away. It's a bank taking it away because they do not want to spend time and money to resolve the situation. The legal risk is high where as there is very little upside for retaining the customer relationship.
FINCEN (and others who have search access to it, which rounds to most Federal Government criminal investigators) can see all SARs filed. Banks (and other financial institutions obligated to file a SAR- like casinos!) don't get to see what any other institution has filed. The point of a SAR is to provide a data point for an investigator, not to create a black-list of unbankable people.
Banks can only share sars in very limited circumstances. If you went to another bank they, in almost every case, would not know that your previous bank filed a sar.
We don’t need to invent a mechanism for banks to share bad customer data between each other. There is a whole ecosystem like credit bureaus for bank accounts.
But sars being secret has nothing to do with that.
Which is already a big improvement over the situation in America.
Being cut from the savings/investment/loan system would certainly suck and be unfair if you did nothing wrong, but much less than losing your basic bank account. That's where you receive/cash your pay, tax refunds, any government benefits, write checks (for things that are still paid that way by default), make transfers, etc.
That's true, and it's certainly better than nothing, but engaging in some legal business activity is also one of the basic personal freedoms in the Western value system, one that is trampled on very badly by the recent rise of draconian banking regulations. For businesses, the banking situation in the EU is actually worse than the US right now. It depends on the country, but in some places small businesses basically have to go begging around, hoping that some bank will take on the "compliance risk" of opening an account for them.
I disagree. Bank accounts aren’t the solution; regulating the end use cases (ie businesses that don’t accept cash) is a much better option for society.
Not just seriously impaired, but outright impossible sometimes. For example, It is illegal to pay in cash above a certain amount, where I'm from. That means having a bank account is not an option, it is practically a requirement. If you don't have a bank account you simply can't buy a house, or a car.
That is not true. All the banks must satisfy the same regulator. None of them are going to take a risk that invites audits from the big cheese to get your 20k in savings. The legal term to avoid here is “unilateral action” - don’t do what the other banks aren’t doing.
The list of problematic people is even shared between them by the regulator.
Due to the savings and loan crisis there is no longer a plurality of banking businesses each with their own independent thinking. There are 10 marketing corporations for the same government service. Same with mortgages.
For example, where does your employer setup direct deposit? How do you apply for a mortgage and demonstrate assets?
If society relies on technology then you need it to participate. Yes you can still breathe without access to transportation, but you can’t work in the economy. In 1940 car or bus access was a luxury because normal people got along fine without one. That’s why it’s misleading to say increasing car access is an better standard of living. It’s actually an increase in the cost to participate in life.
So yes banking must be a right. Or alternatively we could strengthen cash rights (reduce technology) with legal protections to qualify for loans, etc. But that won’t happen.