“If you bank at HSBC in England, don’t plan on making any large cash withdrawals. At least not without a good explanation. Or, maybe even a permission slip.
That’s because a previously unannounced change in banking policy is blocking some customers from making large withdrawals without “evidence” explaining why they need the money from their accounts .
The policy affects customers attempting withdrawals for amounts as little as £5,000 ($8,253).
HSBC says it’s all done in the name of customer protection.
“The reason being we have an obligation to protect our customers, and to minimize the opportunity for financial crime,” HSBC said in a statement. “However, following feedback, we are immediately updating guidance to our customer facing staff to reiterate that it is not mandatory for customers to provide documentary evidence for large cash withdrawals, and on its own, failure to show evidence is not a reason to refuse a withdrawal. We are writing to apologize to any customer who has been given incorrect information and inconvenienced.”
The change in approach comes after the BBC aired reports from multiple HSBC customers who said they were denied in their recent attempts to make cash withdrawals.
Banking customer Stephen Cotton says he attempted to withdraw approximately $11,000 to repay a loan from his mother but was blocked from doing so.
“When we presented them with the withdrawal slip, they declined to give us the money because we could not provide them with a satisfactory explanation for what the money was for,” he told the BBC. “They wanted a letter from the person involved.”
Cotton says the bank wouldn’t even tell him how much he was allowed to withdraw under the new policy, which was not announced to customers when taking affect last November.
“So I wrote out a few slips. I said, ‘Can I have £5,000?’ They said no. I said, ‘Can I have £4,000?’ They said no. And then I wrote one out for £3,000 and they said, ‘OK, we’ll give you that.’ ” ….”
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bank of scotland is out right not letting transactions go thru on peoples’ debit cards.some folks are saying that they won’t even answer phone calls from customers trying to inquire why. this is starting to look bad.rbs has branches throughout the u.s also. waiting for it to reach here.if that happens,well,we all know what would ensue.another ebt like incident
The article mentioned $C as doing the same. It seems to fishy to say it is in the name of fraud protection.
yes it is fishy. now on the other hand,they are trying to call it a hoax because of the chinese holiday,”new years”,that things are being taken out of context….so says hsbc,because with the holiday also comes the banking holiday for china as well.so someone is playing the “gag” as to maybe front run the issue.but last night,zh reported that bank of scotland is playing some sort of b.s,by not accepting peoples’ debit cards for regular purchases. you do know that rbs has a lot of american branches,namely a bank named charter one. fishy indeed.
yeah i read that too. it also coincides with rules through DHS regarding currency exchange, restrictions of and getting permission by dhs for taking $ overseas, and then all the rules, NDAs, and nonsense in relation to general banking. a global reset of currency is underfoot.
as ole senator cement head used to say,”gird your loins”,it’s gonna crash.
it should be that way, but after today’s little bounce back i’m not so sure. perhaps this can be pushed to the back burner for a while longer.