More on the "Identity Assurance programme "

[Ian Batten]

On 4 Nov 2011, at 05:04, Adrian Midgley wrote:

> Identity seems to me to be important toa bank, but who someone is does not.
> 
> IE if I turn up to take out money they really would like to know that
> I am the same person who put it in there, openend the account etc, but
> if I want to be John Smith to them it is no trouble to them,
> 
> Except as far as governments make it for them.

Exactly.  The "know your customer" drive, in which banks demand passports from people who have held credit-only accounts for the past fifty years, is a reaction to money laundering legislation, not the banks' own requirements.  If the government stopped asking, the banks would stop doing.  You may recall that opening a bank account in the 1980s required, or was made much easier, an introduction by an existing customer, rather than a check of formal identity documents.

ian