Guardian article on above and email from Barclays today.
I read somewhere Monzo planned to offer accounts to people who were not able to get one with high street banks but this might though that plan into bit of trouble I think. Not sure where Britain is going with all this tbh.
This is hideous. Trump may be getting all the headlines and the internet outrage, but Mayâs actions have been every bit as bad if not worse.
Nothing that other countries donât do.
A lazy argument just like saying China, Russia and many others use firewalls to restrict Internet access so its ok for our Home secretary to do so
Just what a new start up needs at CA launch (not)
UK banks to check 70m bank accounts in search for illegal immigrants
The Home Office expects to identify 6,000 visa overstayers, failed asylum seekers and foreign national offenders facing deportation in the first year of the checks, which are to be carried out quarterly.
Banks and building societies are to carry out immigration checks on 70m current accounts from January
Sooo, this is a hunt to find 0.008% of people within 70m accounts? (insert philosoraptor here)
I donât really have an opinion on the approach and as a legal immigrant, I donât feel like I could voice my opinion since Iâm a guest here. 
Iâm just surprised about hmm, massive scale and seemingly low expected outcome.
That being said, one paragraph explains all it really is - one more database to check against.
The new legislation requires the banks to check the identity of every current account holder against a Home Office supplied database held by an anti-fraud organisation, Cifas.
Posted already
Oh, what could possibly go wrong here, given that the HO has such a good record of never making mistakes with peopleâs immigration status?
And thatâs quite apart from the fact that I at least have a very common name combination, and it would surprise me hugely if there wasnât an illegal immigrant with my name in this country. I wait to have my account suspended shortly⌠Will that mean I wonât have to repay my mortgage, after they close my account because of a mixup? Then Iâm all in favour 
So I read the email and opened few links from the email which Barclays sent to all its customers about terms and condition changes and found this Opening a Barclays Basic Current Account â non-UK EU residents
This document states;
Accepted forms of Identity Documents
- A certified copy of your passport which must be
current, valid and with a Machine Readable Zone (âMRZâ)*. We need to see your photograph, personal details and signature. This information may be on one page or across several. Please use the certification template which can be found in the appendix to this guide as the background and donât forget to get every photocopied page certified. If your passport is in a different name, you will need to send us some further information this may include a certified copy of your marriage certificate, civil partnership registration, decree absolute with birth certificate, gender recognition certificate or Deed Poll document (as appropriate) evidencing your change of name.
Temporary or Emergency passports are not acceptable
I am wondering if banks are required to do this by law or itâs just Barclays decision to do in this way⌠And what will be :mondo: approach. I would love to hear @tomâs opinion because I understand his girlfriend works for a refugee charity International Rescue and must be aware how difficult is this for Refugees to get identity documents I know Monzo has expressed that they would like to help homeless and refugees (or other unbanked) with bank a account but if our Govt. is bringing new laws in will Monzo still be able to help people with a basic account;
Itâs basically pointless and just to make angry racist Daily Mail readers think the government is âdoing something about itâ.
Yeah, it, what? Because you know, all these illegal immigrants everywhereâŚ
I think the worst bit is the fact that it says they can basically keep the money (or delay the return of).
I hate seeing my country turn into a stupid backwards backwater like this. 
Study of Theresa Mayâs âhostile environmentâ measures against illegal immigrants finds high error rate
Home Office wrongly denying people bank accounts in 10% of cases
Oh wow. 10%?! Even with my cynicism and conviction of the Home Officeâs incompetence I had not expected the error rate to be quite that high. Thatâs insane!
