Al Rayan Bank 1.6% account

noclaf

bowlhead99 wrote: »

As mentioned by someone above, it is a more fully-featured account than Marcus, e.g. not having the restrictions on deposits and withdrawals only being made to one account.

They don't know you and are being asked to handle your money. So they'll put whatever processes in place that they think are necessary to identify you.

It's all very well thinking, "well, *I* know I'm not a terrorist or money launderer and don't appear on any sanctions list, so I don't see why I should have to provide evidence of my identity, you must be joking", but others can probably see it from their side.

Perhaps for one reason or another they tried an electronic check of your information and it failed. But at the end of the day if it's only an extra £15 of pre-tax income a year per £10,000 deposited, it wouldn't hurt to use a different lower-paying bank where you might get away without providing the ID.

4291? [dog]

It might just be that they have a inefficient setup for new account applications however I would agree that it's a sensitive environment now for Banks and Financial companies generally on the topic of financial crime, AML and all that good stuff. I've noticed that banks are asking a LOT more questions these days whether it's trying to protect from Fraud or simply being more alert to laundering of dodgy proceeds. Mainly down to reputational impact when they miss something , get whacked by the regulator and it appears in the media! Hence they are being more cautious now.