All done. 
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Good boy 
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Fairly standard KYC
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Youâd be surprised how when youâre reviewing accounts that sort of information helps to correlate what youâre seeing in terms of activity.
It might seem strange to want to know - but itâs incredibly useful as part of the overall picture.
This is the sort of thing that, these days, I find really interesting and would love to write about in more detail. Sadly if I wrote about exactly why this sort of thing is useful then it would just be used by those who are laundering money to avoid detection, and then it would be pointless information to have.
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You are, in some ways, a higher risk if youâre further up the food chain in terms of your job role. For example a director might be embezzling funds through their bank account.
But also it can be used to explain a pattern of payments that might not be expected for somebody who is working in a fairly entry level role and so used to discount a suspicion on an account.
Itâs all very nuanced and part of the overall picture when reviewing an account for suspicious, unusual or just plain normal activity.
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You donât have to provide it - that would be your choice. However if youâre unwilling to provide it to any reputable financial institution then you might find your banking opportunities become pretty restricted.
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So you do de facto have to provide it.
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You could keep your money under your mattress or in crypto, or perhaps find a smaller institution which isnât subject to the same scrutiny by the regulators.
As you grow in size, so does the scrutiny.
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Much like a 17yo might be a money muel after seeing an advert on tiktok. It isnât that useful in the grand scheme of things. Does it help a little bit? Probably.
Again, Iâm not criticising the banks for asking. It is a criticism of how it was allowed to get to this point. I fear for future generations if they keep rolling over and accepting this creep from authorities.
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Exactly - but youâve kinda proven my point for me there.
Those who work in financial crime know that the risk profile of somebody in their late teens is much more susceptible to being recruited into being a mule.
Having the age of the customer makes it easier for various aspects of internal financial crime controls (both automatic and human intervention) to locate, analyse and action such behaviour.
That doesnât mean that all 17 year olds are mules or that muling exclusively occurs on accounts belonging to 17 year olds but itâs just one of a number of indicators that might be used to identify it.
I donât disagree on the creep that you mention, but itâs very hard to keep up with the criminals without having as much data as possible.
That said, there are parts of the way the regulation in financial crime works in this country that I fundamentally disagree with because itâs so incredibly punitive. Especially in the example you mention of muling where a lot of the time the people involved havenât had anywhere near enough financial education to even be aware that theyâre doing anything illegal and which could, potentially, end up with them struggling to access banking services for anything up to six years.
But those are the rules financial institutions work in and have to obey if they want to keep a banking licence, e-money licence or whatever framework theyâre regulated by.
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What do you learn from the salary question?
Iâm sure the vast majority of people get paid by one employer, once a month, if thatâs into Monzo yourselves then surely youâve got a very good idea what I earn?
Obviously thereâs pensions and student loads to consider, but enough to be rough, especially as the salary bands above are so wide.
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I donât disagree, but itâs duplicitous to say âyou donât have to complyâ when the alternatives, according to you, are nonsense.
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This is the short version, but I think the problem here is with the way these things work in practice - due to the way that regulations have been drafted - rather than the intent.
I am still very much unsettled though, by the government effectively outsourcing policing and justice to the banks. Financial access really needs to be a human right, and the whole secrecy thing doesnât really help.
Take, for example, the weird situation where folk canât open a joint account. Iâm assuming that itâs a business decision (and one that @Carlo1460 knows about) but yet he can know what it is, despite being personally affected and as an accident of who he works for. The rest of us are left in the dark.
This example is important because, although presumably not about fincrime per se, itâs part of an unaccountable organisation choosing who can access fundamentally important services but not being open about it. And while this might be a business choice it becomes conflated with the judge and jury role that banks have when they close accounts. And then, of course, we have the situation that Dan alludes to where, due to one mistake, a 17 year old is effectively given a life sentence of exclusion from the mainstream financial system.
The whole thing needs a rethink - by government - imo.
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I read loads on Reddit about people getting caught up in the movement of money stuff and they get slapped with a CIFAS (rightly so from the laws perspective) and penalised for a long time after (6 years?).
Lack of education can and always will lead people down the wrong tracks 
As for the joint account stuff, Iâm hoping whatever it is 
changes soon enough, not for my sake, Iâm over it, just for all else wanting to open one.
Being on the receiving end of the decline isnât great considering as a couple, and pushing my partner to open an account with monzo, we then werenât offered to open one.
Starling all the way 
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Getting personal accounts, then being denied joint just doesnât make sense. Something is broken
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We are in that camp too. Both full Monzo, both decent incomes, no bad credit and so on. Joint account refused. I think the system is either broke, being reworked, or itâs a business decision to run down joint accounts. But as someone else mentioned, accepted by Starling for personal and joint - with no personal account histories to base it on. So they get our business now. It is fine - we are not bitter. It is just the opaqueness of Monzos attitude to joint accounts.
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