Just to show what a proverbial pickle this all is - the government are to move quickly to call for new regulations requiring clear explanation of bank account closures.
However, under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 banks are actually banned from giving closure information to customers suspected of financial wrongdoing ie 'tipping off' rules. Oops.
So, if the rules change and a bank closes an account and refuses to tell the account holder why they will have clearly tipped off the account holder that the authorities are on to them. The National Crime Agency will probably try to stop the change.
Expect the proposed changes to the law to quietly disappear once the hullabaloo dies down.
Doubt is not a pleasant condition.
But certainty is an absurd one.
Voltaire
Count Steer wrote: ↑Fri Jul 28, 2023 10:09 pm
Just to show what a proverbial pickle this all is - the government are to move quickly to call for new regulations requiring clear explanation of bank account closures.
However, under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 banks are actually banned from giving closure information to customers suspected of financial wrongdoing ie 'tipping off' rules. Oops.
So, if the rules change and a bank closes an account and refuses to tell the account holder why they will have clearly tipped off the account holder that the authorities are on to them. The National Crime Agency will probably try to stop the change.
Expect the proposed changes to the law to quietly disappear once the hullabaloo dies down.
I just got pinged an article on LinkedIn by Alison Rose talking about a meeting between the senior management team and a junior one. There weren't many comments so I was tempted to congratulate her on the great example she is setting them, I decided it might backfire on me somehow so I didn't bother but did notice someone else berating her for using the pejorative term 'junior'.
"NatWest are in panic mode again.
My new Subject Access Request submitted to NatWest Group about personal information they hold on me has been categorised as ‘complex’!
Instead of a regular 30 days, they say I will have to wait until 21st Oct…
What are they trying to hide now?"
When I was having my problems with Santander, a friend who works in the BoE suggested that I submit a Subject Access Request so I did just that.
Apparently, the banks hate them as it ties people up for quite a bit of time. I didn't get mine within the 30 days so I opened another complaint about that and then it turns out that the person dealing with the closure of my accounts and their incompetence in giving me my money had cancelled my request as he thought that as he'd got the account re-opened I didn't want the information!
I put him straight, suggesting that I thought he may well have broken the law and I got all the data about 10 days later and £250 to keep me quiet.
I suspect I may be 'debanked', or 'off-boarded' if you prefer, by my employer. In fairness, I don't really use the staff account, although they did stipulate some years ago that my salary gets paid into it, which I simply transfer out on pay day, so no biggie.
What I do find amusing is that if I wasn't an employee, they certainly wouldn't give a jubbo like me an account.
When I got an IT job in banking in 2000 I was told I had to have a staff account to pay my salary into. Apparently that requirement was quietly removed a few years later.
mangocrazy wrote: ↑Thu Aug 03, 2023 4:24 pm
When I got an IT job in banking in 2000 I was told I had to have a staff account to pay my salary into. Apparently that requirement was quietly removed a few years later.
A few years ago, the CEO of a certain bank, which shall remain nameless, which was expanding in the UK was asked how many of the staff bank there. The CEO didn't know and set about asking. He was a bit miffed that the answer was a bit lower than he'd anticipated. Hence all new staff had to have their salaries paid into a staff account. A few years later the goalposts were moved and everybody had to have their salaries paid into a staff account.
Imagine then, when said bank, which shall still remain nameless, was given a slap on the wrist for certain inadequacies in its KYC processes. Suddenly all these staff accounts, which cost the bank money to maintain, but made feck all money coz everybody simply paid all the money out on pay day, leaving a zero balance, came under scrutiny. Suddenly the vanity project that it was from the start became very obvious....
mangocrazy wrote: ↑Thu Aug 03, 2023 4:24 pm
When I got an IT job in banking in 2000 I was told I had to have a staff account to pay my salary into. Apparently that requirement was quietly removed a few years later.
A few years ago, the CEO of a certain bank, which shall remain nameless, which was expanding in the UK was asked how many of the staff bank there. The CEO didn't know and set about asking. He was a bit miffed that the answer was a bit lower than he'd anticipated. Hence all new staff had to have their salaries paid into a staff account. A few years later the goalposts were moved and everybody had to have their salaries paid into a staff account.
Imagine then, when said bank, which shall still remain nameless, was given a slap on the wrist for certain inadequacies in its KYC processes. Suddenly all these staff accounts, which cost the bank money to maintain, but made feck all money coz everybody simply paid all the money out on pay day, leaving a zero balance, came under scrutiny. Suddenly the vanity project that it was from the start became very obvious....
I am entirely unsurprised by that...
What became apparent to me was that senior management positions were filled by means of what appeared to be a cross between a revolving door and an old boy's club. Or, more accurately, membership of the same golf club. The same faces pop up every 4-5 years, but at a different Bank. The Bank I worked for hired a couple of the old boys from Lloyds and before long we were knee deep in the buggers. They were every bit as shit as the senior managers they replaced.
These long notice periods are a bit of a gamble, it basically makes you unemployable anywhere else because not many companies will wait over a year to start a new job with them, so the company has to bung you a bit extra to accept those terms, but if you do end up handing your notice in then they have to pay you for a year for either tossing it off at work, or at home if they put you on gardening leave.
Potter wrote: ↑Wed Aug 23, 2023 2:02 pm
These long notice periods are a bit of a gamble, it basically makes you unemployable anywhere else because not many companies will wait over a year to start a new job with them, so the company has to bung you a bit extra to accept those terms, but if you do end up handing your notice in then they have to pay you for a year for either tossing it off at work, or at home if they put you on gardening leave.
I had a nice three month garden leave once, ended up redecorating the house, and doing some odds-n-sods different work while tossing it off (and tossing it off, natch).
My previous boss had an entire year's garden leave as part of a takeover.
DefTrap wrote: ↑Wed Aug 23, 2023 2:25 pm
I had a nice three month garden leave once, ended up redecorating the house, and doing some odds-n-sods different work while tossing it off (and tossing it off, natch).
My previous boss had an entire year's garden leave as part of a takeover.
Same, through a lovely summer - had a cracking tan that year and decorated house top-to-bottom too
DefTrap wrote: ↑Wed Aug 23, 2023 2:25 pm
I had a nice three month garden leave once, ended up redecorating the house, and doing some odds-n-sods different work while tossing it off (and tossing it off, natch).
My previous boss had an entire year's garden leave as part of a takeover.
I had 3 months gl when I left one company to work for another. When I went back the other way I only got a month.
Doubt is not a pleasant condition.
But certainty is an absurd one.
Voltaire