Revelations 13:16-18 “Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666.”
Important Takeaways:
- Bank customers get a letter in the mail saying their institution is closing all of their checking and savings accounts. Their debit and credit cards are shuttered, too. The explanation, if there is one, usually lacks any useful detail.
- Or maybe the customers don’t see the letter, or never get one at all. Instead, they discover that their accounts no longer work while they’re at the grocery store, rental car counter or A.T.M. When they call their bank, frantic, representatives show concern at first. “Oh, no, so sorry,” they say. “We’ll do whatever we can to fix this.”
- But then comes the telltale pause and shift in tone. “Per your account agreement, we can close your account for any reason at any time,” the script often goes.
- These situations are what banks refer to as “exiting” or “de-risking.” This isn’t your standard boot for people who have bounced too many checks. Instead, a vast security apparatus has kicked into gear, starting with regulators in Washington and trickling down to bank security managers and branch staff eyeballing customers. The goal is to crack down on fraud, terrorism, money laundering, human trafficking and other crimes.
- In the process, banks are evicting what appear to be an increasing number of individuals, families and small-business owners. Often, they don’t have the faintest idea why their banks turned against them.
- Banks generally won’t say how often they are closing accounts this way, and they’re not tracking how often they get it wrong.
- By law, banks must file a “suspicious activity report” when they see transactions or behavior that might violate the law
- According to Thomson Reuters, banks filed over 1.8 million SARs in 2022, a 50 percent increase in just two years. This year, the figure is on track to hit nearly two million.
- Federal data on the types of SARs that banks file show what they worry about most. Last year, banks filing SARs tagged categories like suspicious checks, concern over the source of the funds and “transaction with no apparent economic, business or lawful purpose” most often, according to Thomson Reuters.
- To former bank employees, the bloodless data belie the havoc that banks wreak. “There is no humanization to any of this, and it’s all just numbers on a screen,” said Aaron Ansari, who used to program the algorithms that flag suspicious activity. “It’s not ‘No, that is a single mom running a babysitting business.’ “It’s ‘Hey, you’ve checked these boxes for a red flag — you’re out.’”
- What follow are profiles of customers who lost their accounts and an analysis of what behavior may have spurred their banks to shun them.
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