Must one inform the bank before receiving a large sum?

ZeroSum

robatwork said:

Not since about 1990 when you may have known your bank manager. I had a similar situation with large sums going out my account recently. From discussions with their fraud team (every time I got locked out) there's nothing they can do to whitelist anything. A "note added to your details" proved about as useful as it sounds.

I seem to remember also having an option advising the same bank I was going abroad, but that also disappeared some time ago. 

Was it virgin by any chance?

robatwork

ZeroSum said:

robatwork said:

Not since about 1990 when you may have known your bank manager. I had a similar situation with large sums going out my account recently. From discussions with their fraud team (every time I got locked out) there's nothing they can do to whitelist anything. A "note added to your details" proved about as useful as it sounds.

I seem to remember also having an option advising the same bank I was going abroad, but that also disappeared some time ago. 

Was it virgin by any chance?

To prove my point about being fairly pointless to inform them up front, this was Santander. I suspect they are all the same with computerised AML algorithms that the staff are powerless to bypass. In my febrile mind I see it as trying to leave a pencil scribble on the side of a 2001 monolith.

Nobody sees it and it just annoys the vast "intelligence" behind the scenes.

KevinG

I have never had an issue with pretty vast sums of money

CliveOfIndia

robatwork said:

I suspect they are all the same with computerised AML algorithms that the staff are powerless to bypass

You've pretty much hit the nail on the head.

The thing is, AML rules are pretty stringent, and banks can potentially be fined enormous amounts if they fail to perform due diligence and have adequate checks in place.

What usually happens is that the initial alert is raised by the computer algorithms, and you're right, this can't normally be bypassed.  The account is then investigated by a specialist team within the bank.

What triggers the initial alert can be a number of things, but commonly it includes any transaction that is "out of the ordinary" for that account, or money being paid in from a specified list of "dodgy" sources or countries.

Any bank is free to set its own rules as to what will trigger an alert in the first place, but given the potential backlash and penalties if they're found to be negligent in their AML monitoring, most will tend to err on the side of caution.  But it is a toss-up between protecting themselves and not annoying their customers too much without good reason.