How much personal information should we give to banks ?

Consumerist

nzseries1 wrote: »

However I personally wouldn't bother complaining, ...

And that's the real reason why the financial institutions get away with it.
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nzseries1

Consumerist wrote: »

And that's the real reason why the financial institutions get away with it.
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Yeah, I know. But after living in London 3 years, I've given up on complaining about things, now I use the idea "If you don't use it, there's 10,000,000 other suckers who will".

If you complain about bad service at a restaurant, there's 10,000,000 other suckers who will go to that restaurant so why should they act on your complaint or improve their service.

If you abandon a company because they use 0870 numbers, there's 10,000,000 other suckers who will still use them. [EDIT: And your non-MSE friends will all disown you for being cheap]

While I agree with you wholeheartedly, I just can't be bothered faced with those kinds of odds :rolleyes:

nrsql

I applaud the OP.

As to dependants - if it doesn't have a definition you could say that, as a number of banks are now subsidised by the taxpayer, as a taxpayer all account holders (or at least employees) of those banks are dependants? As are everyone claiming benefits, on pensions, government/council employee....
Wonder what is the maximum value that box will take.

BruceyBonus

We used to get a lot of people moaning about the question "How many other cars do you have in your household?" and "What is your marital status?" on car insurance applications.

The reason we asked wasn't for marketing, for more for fraud. Here's an example: someone sets up a policy with their son/daughter as named driver. They have 1 other car in the household and they are single. This information could suggest they are fronting, so the underwriters may investigate further.

Same goes for bank accounts. They need to ask a number of questions to establish more information about the customer to help them comply with money laundering regulations. Asking how much you spend on petrol is just plain and simple nosy but questions like approximate income, marital status etc help them determine your profile.

nrsql

Agree about insurance but those questions are obviously connected with the product.
I would agree if they had other accounts with the institution but the questions should be asked when they are taking out those accounts.

How could marital status and income be a factor in deciding whether money laundering could be an issue when taking out a cash isa which has a max value of £3600.

Are you saying they might be concerned depending on the answer?
income £10,000 single, wants to save £3,600 - oh oh, sounds like something dodgy is going on here?

Consumerist

nzseries1 wrote: »

If you complain about bad service at a restaurant, there's 10,000,000 other suckers who will go to that restaurant so why should they act on your complaint or improve their service. . .

OK. But remember that the objective here is to get the regulator to make the decision and then the bank may ignore the regulator at its peril.
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Primrose

I think Consumerist is right to complain. I accept that banks have a compliance need for certain basic information about us for Money Laundering purposes. National Insurance number - Yes. Salary - certainly not if you're opening a savings account. Probably Yes if you're asking for a loan. However, everybody is now jumping on the "personal information bandwaggon" when it is not absolutely necessary and whilst I also have nothing to hide, I resent requests for personal information when it is not appropriate and I refuse to provide it. I also, in principle, refuse to provide my ethnicity on all these survey forms one is often requested to complete by Local Authorities and others where you have to tick to say whether you're white, Afro-Caribbean, etc. What the heck does it matter anyway? The residents of this country are sleepwalking into a police state by default where everything about you is known by not challenging the need for all this information to be provided. We have seen so many times in the past that such data is lost or inappropriately used by those who have no right to access it. The more personal information about you that is floating around in the system, the more opportunities there are for it to be used inappropriately or equally worrying, for fraud and identity theft.

nrsql

>> Probably Yes if you're asking for a loan.
If you're asking for a loan they should ascertain whether you are able to pay it back or if it would put you under undue hardship - for your benefit as well as theirs.
They should ask questions about income and debt for this - marital status, dependants, home ownership, stability... would all be reasonable.

GiraffeMan

Consumerist wrote: »

Do Tesco and Morrisons collect personal information which could be used by a fraudster to impersonate you ?

yes, for instance club card holders

Consumerist

GiraffeMan wrote: »

yes, for instance club card holders

I am aware that club cards are used to analyse your shopping habits but I'm not sure that your shopping habits could be used as a means of impersonating you for the purpose of fraud.

The kind of information that banks collect, however, definitely could be used for fraudelent purposes. It is the unnecessary collection of this kind of information to which I object. What can be regarded as unnecessary, however, will depend on what facility you are applying for.

So the question is: does your residential status, marital status or number of dependants help determine whether you are money-laundering? I, personally, think not.

How, for example, could they even verify the information from another source under the Data Protection Act?