do I have to tell the truth to the bank?

[BertBert]

When I phone up the bank to do a foreign currency transfer, they ask for the reason. Now I know they have to ask, but do I have to answer truthfully or even answer at all? Is it in the contract I have with the bank or enshrined in statute, or can I just lie?
Bert

[Eclassy]

I dont think so. I once withdrew a large amount to take abroad over the counter and the lady asked me what I was going to use the money for.

I wasnt prepared to start explaining my business arrangements to her so I just lied that it was spending money for a holiday of a lifetime.

How would anyone know you 'lied'? You can withdraw for reason A on Monday and change your mind on Tuesday and decide to use the cash for reason B. Surely you are not expected to deposit the money back in only so you can withdraw it for the 'correct' reason.

[divetheworld]

AFAIK it's Anti money laundering. They have to ascertain the likelihood you're up to no good.

[7db]

Week after Ascot?

[otolith]

They must catch loads of criminals out that way, when they blurt out that they're laundering ill gotten gains.

[HereBeMonsters]

[ferrariF50lover]

I was once depositing an amount in cash. I was asked where I got it. I told the clerk I'd just been into another local branch with a sawn-off and a balaclava. She wrote that on her form. I never had any trouble. More meaningless officialdom created for no reason other than to justify a large payment from public funds to a 'think tank' or similar.

Simon.

[MrPicky]

I am going to spend half of it on Booze and Mucky Women, the rest I'll probably waste!

[Snowboy]

Chances are it'll only get looked at if you deposit and withdraw a lot if cash a lot of times.
For the occasional deposit it's going to be a write only document.

[anonymous-user]

otolith said:

They must catch loads of criminals out that way, when they blurt out that they're laundering ill gotten gains.

She's asked the question, what has it primed you to think about?

Money laundering?

Exactly. A reminder to everyone (nice and not nice people) that legislation and enforcement has practically been removed it from banking.

[ging84]

you will be surprised by how many people who do actually give things up when asked a direct question, and then those who don't give it up the first time, but do when you say are you sure

[creampuff]

Deposits are anti-money laundering.

Cash withdrawals have nothing to do with money laundering. Once it is in the bank (the leglislstion says) it's clean and laundered.

Banks may sometimes ask about withdrawals from personal accounts as they don't want personal accounts used for business purposes, which large cash withdrawals could indicate.

Also avoid HSBC. They were outed recently for not giving their customers their own money.

[BertBert]

I guess I was interested technically...whether there is a statute or a contract condition between me and the bank that required me to tell them?

[Snowboy]

BertBert said:

I guess I was interested technically...whether there is a statute or a contract condition between me and the bank that required me to tell them?

I would guess that if you were investigated for financial irregularities and found to have lied on the documents you might be asked to explain yourself.

It's probably not inherently illegal.
It is probably against the banks T&C's, but they won't care.

[anonymous-user]

creampuff said:

Deposits are anti-money laundering.

Cash withdrawals have nothing to do with money laundering. Once it is in the bank (the leglislstion says) it's clean and laundered.

Which legislation says that money from criminal activity is safe and clean once it's in the bank?

[3Dee]

La Liga said:

hich legislation says that money from criminal activity is safe and clean once it's in the bank?

Not when HMRC is involved!

[Gillett66]

La Liga said:

creampuff said:

Deposits are anti-money laundering.

Cash withdrawals have nothing to do with money laundering. Once it is in the bank (the leglislstion says) it's clean and laundered.

Which legislation says that money from criminal activity is safe and clean once it's in the bank?

But surely the end goal of money laundering is to get it into a bank?

[anonymous-user]

3Dee said:

La Liga said:

hich legislation says that money from criminal activity is safe and clean once it's in the bank?

Not when HMRC is involved!

It doesn't seem overly safe to me when restraint orders are made under POCA to freeze accounts, too.

Gillett66 said:

La Liga said:

creampuff said:

Deposits are anti-money laundering.

Cash withdrawals have nothing to do with money laundering. Once it is in the bank (the leglislstion says) it's clean and laundered.

Which legislation says that money from criminal activity is safe and clean once it's in the bank?

But surely the end goal of money laundering is to get it into a bank?

Indeed, which is why it has been so heavily legislated against over time. Other criminals can't steal your cash from you when it's in the bank. However, it's now high-risk to place money in a bank if it's unlawfully obtained.

I think there's a bit of a misconception as to how easy it is to "clean" money. It's not.

[Snowboy]

Gillett66 said:

But surely the end goal of money laundering is to get it into a bank?

The idea is to get it into the bank cleanly.

If you get dirty money into the bank then it can be tracked.

The bank laws have two objectives.
One is to stop money laundering.
The other is to identify and track it back to the criminals.

Money laundering used to be about changing stacks of grubby notes into numbers on a bank account.
But things are a bit different now where a lot if stuff is electronic transfers.

[otolith]

La Liga said:

otolith said:

They must catch loads of criminals out that way, when they blurt out that they're laundering ill gotten gains.

She's asked the question, what has it primed you to think about?

Money laundering?

Exactly. A reminder to everyone (nice and not nice people) that legislation and enforcement has practically been removed it from banking.

I reckon most people probably think "what the hell has it got to do with you?" and don't understand the reasoning. And that criminals think "hurr hurr hurr".