The need for an address is incredibly outdated imo. Not just for banking but for anything. It's the equivalent of when places used to want to to give a home landline number.
I think there needs to be more discussion about how we move away from addresses to some other kind of basis for taxation, education, health, etc (not blockchain), a real answer that lets me declare my residency on the highest territorial level possible and transact electronically or to a physical location I pick
I'm not sure I have the faculties to address what bothers me about this comment, but there is so much tied to traditional society the comment seems to ignore.
- Voting districts - obviously tied to physical land, with different styles of vote counting system per area, often according to local cultural needs. I come from a society where special voting considerations exist in order to achieve actual peace. Prior to that system being introduced, there was war. The right to vote and the manner in which the vote occurs is an essential and inalienable attribute of all democratic societies, often deeply saturated in historic customs taking centuries of diplomacy to achieve stability.
- Public services - voting and taxation are directly related to policy in a local area. The tax that I pay my local council is accountable almost directly to me because I can schedule an appointment with the very people whom I elect to spend my taxes as I desire. My physical address in that locale entitles me to an opinion on the use of those taxes, and a stake in ensuring awareness of local policy, and that the policy works for myself and the people around me.
- Land rights - a requirement for a physical address, or the alternative of no requirement for a physical address, (is/is not) an implicit endorsement of land ownership and encouraging long term placement of people within fixed communities. Community quality and composition varies greatly across every region of the world, and for folk spending most of their life inside cities, it is easy to forget the concept of a community exists. Establishing a physical local presence is essential for many kinds of growth, not least, starting a family and therefore the continued growth of a healthy society.
So to summarize, I think what bothers me is that the only possible way to arrive at what the parent comment suggests would be to avoid participating or contributing to any of these essential traits of civil society, which is to say it is an opinion explicitly rooted in contributing to civic decay. It's not "incredibly outdated", a physical address comes with many essential implications that ought to be encouraged.
> a real answer that lets me declare my residency on the highest territorial level possible and transact electronically or to a physical location I pick
So a digital identity system needs to be implemented. Something akin to what quite a few countries have already implemented.
I'm unsure why it would require more discussion at this point. It's not hypothetical science fiction without practical examples.
Massively agree, this has been annoying me for a while now. I'm only renting and the need for everyone to know my address which i'll only reside for a couple of months is so pointless. Also the need for people to see some utility bill to verify that i'm there is problematic when they're all in my landlords name.
Agree it shouldn't be a hard requirement, but fyi a secure physical address is pretty valuable for re-establishing relationships if electronic communication breaks down or is lost.
I don’t see it until biometrics and sovereign identity are a thing. The only people who really benefit are really rich people and really poor people. It also creates a dozens of hundreds of truly difficult problems.
In the US, people pitched a fit when the tax authority started requiring facial verification for sign in to access sensitive, vulnerable to fraud records, so it ain’t happening here.
The really rich people don’t really care, and nobody really cares about the really poor. Nobody cares in the least about the elderly. Everyone else has a home and has more to lose to the rampant fraud that happens when you make things like this easier.
It's not outdated in the least. The vast majority of people have an address. Most people don't move that often. Hell, most people don't live outside the country they were born in.
Seem odd to design a whole new system for an edge case?
I want politics and taxation to be more local in the smallest division practical, with extreme limits being placed on the power and scope of larger political organizations. In short I fully support US Style Federalism and oppose the move to make the US Federal Government all powerful
If I was in the EU I would support sovereignty of the nation states,and oppose efforts to make the EU Government all powerful
the move to make governments larger and all encompassing including calls for a 1 world government, are IMO a threat to individual freedom and will not have the desired effect you seem to think
Because just letting people pick where they want to be taxed/sued/regulated doesnt work. Laws change from one place to another. Where you live matters to which laws apply to you. Where your bank account lives matters to which laws apply to it. Would you rent a london appartment to someone if you might have to sue them in Quebec should they fail to pay rent?
Chile has a great system which guarantees a free bank account linked to your national ID called Cuenta RUT. It has some limits like only a debit card and a max value you can store there but I think it’s a fantastic idea.
You just need to walk in to any branch with your ID and you’re all set with an account you can receive and send payments from. If you need something more from your bank account - it stands to reason you have the necessary documentation to apply for a ‘regular’ bank account which most do.
Even foreigners with any kind of work permit get this ID called a RUT and are eligible.
> Chile has a great system which guarantees a free bank account linked to your national ID called Cuenta RUT.
To me this reads as a dystopian nightmare. I want a bank account not associated with me in any way digitally or on paper; where I have total control.
Otherwise the government can seize my assets at a whim.
Funny story, in IL I have a bank account with chase. They decided to close the account because it wasn’t active (making regular deposits) (I’d do yearly deposits and use it to pay static bills) AND give it to the state. So the state of IL took custody of my bank account, without warning. I then received something in the mail I had to respond to within 10 days to get it back. I filed the paperwork, but nothing. Money just gone. I’m currently fighting to get my money back.
Anyway, the point is political actors can debank people they disagree with (see Wikileaks) and destroy them. Ideally, that wouldn’t be possible. The government should answer to the people, not control their people.
Interesting that the selection of branches includes Belgravia and Notting Hill Gate, two of the most expensive areas in the UK
The branch list does not include Camden Town where there are homeless people sleeping in the streets near HSBC.
The underlying issue here is that Covid has accelerated the transition to cashless digital first transactions that are controlled by private entities that have their own agenda.
> Notting Hill Gate, two of the most expensive areas in the UK
That's not really how London works though: less than a mile north of Notting Hill Gate you start to hit some areas of serious poverty: https://jamestrimble.github.io/imdmaps/eimd2015/ is a good tool for exploring.
HSBC were the ones who blackholed my request to open a new account for monthly rent deposits (because I was going to be co-living).
It was months of back and forth before they finally told me that I had offhandedly mentioned my salary and they wanted proof of that. Despite never needing proof before, and despite them being the bearer of my bank account so they could see this. I had to refuse to leave the HQ on Fleet Street for 4 hours before they even told me that.
They wouldn’t accept my payslip pdf as proof. So I walked across the street to Barclays and opened 3 accounts on the spot and never looked back.
Ironically to this topic, I had to close that account when I left the UK because I didn’t have a UK address. But HSBC handled my case really badly, I nearly lost my accommodation because of their opaque stalling (I need to prove direct debit before move-in). So I would never go back.
HSBC are notorious bastards and I fired them ages ago.
They transferred £2000 out of my account randomly one day with no cause or explanation when there was £118 available in it. The next day they froze the account and a specific contact at HSBC forced me to make a repayment arrangement for the money. I refused and opened a dispute and it took me 14 months to get it back and all fees incurred for entering an unarranged overdraft. It ruined my credit rating for 3 years. Every contact I made with them was handled by someone utterly incompetent or disinterested in solving the problem even when I involved a solicitor.
Never an apology, never an explanation, never a true resolution.
NEVER work with HSBC. ALWAYS keep your finances distributed between multiple accounts.
With Santander mostly now who so far, touch wood, have succeeded in not fucking anything up. Halifax as a backup.
Opening a bank account as a fresh immigrant before the age of neobanks was a nightmare. In my desperation I even called a private bank in Jersey only to be told a need a whopping 5M pounds deposit to open an account.
After visiting 20+ branches in person in London, one manager took pity on me and opened a business account.
I had all paperwork fully ready, they just weren't interested, or at least I wasn't aware of the 'dance' required to open an account. You couldn't just walk in an open one. You needed an appointment for another day.
My experience was exactly the opposite. Being a new immigrant in UK, Barclays handed me a list of required documents and also made it clear I needed a NI number (UK tax number) before I could open an account. At this point I did not have an account I could get my salary paid in.
Walked across the street to HSBC and all they needed was a letter from my employer and I had my account in a few hours.
If you aren’t receiving support from Shelter or one of our other partners, you won’t be able to access the No Fixed Address programme.
Well, I hope it helps some people but color me unimpressed. It's hard to prove homelessness and some people don't qualify for services and etc.
I wish some bank would pull its head out of its butt, accept an email address as adequate contact info and let people pick things up at the local branch (like a new debit card).
Online banking is encouraged anytime you, say, try to call the bank these days. They have the capability to implement this.
They could do it quietly and not make it "a homeless program."
I wonder if the international anti terrorism / anti money laundering regulations are making that more difficult. For example N26 was under fire for not doing much to verify identities in this regard.
Outside of the obvious money laundering issues, there are other regulatory reasons why a bank would need to verify where a person resides, including taxation, data management requirements and if the person is even allowed to have an account in the first place.
But I completely agree with your general point, in that banks could probably work with way less information than they are requiring now. For instance a valid ID with any proof that you reside in the country you open the bank account in should be enough, no need for an exact address, or proof of employment etc.
Currently most of their requests are to weed out low margin customers. Proof of it, there are actual banks that already work on a "prepaid" basis providing very little service outside of storing money, and they effectively only need an official ID and a phone number (provided the ID will have a residence and more info)
I remember moving to the UK at 19. I was room sharing so had no bills in my name. I had no job yet, so no payslip. Only documentation was a British passport.
I eventually gave up trying to find a bank that would do passport only bank accounts. And just forged a few utility bills. HSBC, despite being the most onerous bank in terms of demanding documentation was the most lax in actually doing any due diligence.
The problem is that there's ultimately no due diligence you can do on a utility bill that can't be defeated by a fraudster. No utility will answer a call to confirm/deny someone's details (as it can be abused), and even then, utilities that don't rely on a physical location (wireless telecoms/internet) themselves can't prove (and don't particularly care about) the address they have on file so even a legitimate utility account doesn't guarantee the account holder actually has access to that address.
The banks are only requiring them to cover their ass because the country seems to have accepted the idea that a utility bill is somehow an authoritative document, so they can claim their due diligence was up to scratch (well they're not wrong, as you can't reasonably do any better) if things go wrong.
Monzo will do this; I signed up for a bank account without a permanent address, and had one within 30 mins of arriving in the UK. They still require an address to mail you your card (so not the same target market as the OP), but it wasn’t too onerous.
This is basically saying “We are going to allow you to participate on society just a little as long as you follow the rules and is associated with these institutions we approve”.
How is this not considered a violation of human rights and dignity? Oh I forgot… gotta keep those unwashed 87% of the world population out of our pretty financial system.
In America we call this a credit score: a black box system that nobody, not even the credit agencies, can describe or understand. Obligatory dhh/Apple Card Twitter thread on this subject - https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1192540900393705474
Most of the financial system is nothing more than money laundering for cartels and corrupt oligarchs. We need to walk away from the brick and mortar banking institutions.
Does the UK government really leave this to private institutions and their "partner charities"? In the Netherlands the government will just give you a PO box if you're homeless.
In France it’s integrated in the system, charities can be the address of the homeless people they follow, and that address can be used for almost any red tape.
Interesting - could really help some people who do not have a fixed address. Great to see that an employment services firm, Reed in Partnership, is one of the partners who will be used to validate the candidate's authenticity - it can be a struggle for someone without a fixed address to get a bank account and it is often easier to initially get part time employment than it is to get a bank account or a lease in your own name. Lessors want a bank account, and banks want proof of a place of residence. However, where does the employer deposit the salary? I know this is a problem - I was in this precise position twenty years ago.
It's only for people who are "in the system" of poverty:
"If you aren’t receiving support from Shelter or one of our other partners, you won’t be able to access the No Fixed Address programme. View the list of supporting charities. To access the scheme, you'll need to call the charity, or visit their website and complete an online referral form."
AFAIK, South Dakota is the only state in the US where you can legally obtain residency and a driver license using a post office box, provided you spend at least one night in the state. In fact it is encouraged, and is the state in which most US travelers, RV'ers, etc have residency. Plus no state income tax. Low vehicle license and registration fees. NO vehicle inspection. Low insurance rates on health & auto. Indeed there are businesses that will support you with all your residency requirements (including mail scanning & forwarding) for an extremely modest fee (e.g dakotapost.net in Sioux Falls and choosesd.com in Spearfish). The SD banks will gladly open a bank account for you and your business(es) with such residency.
For context: UK businesses are more serious about requiring an official address than the US. In the US, you can just fill in any plausible address. Your parent's house or a friend's house is fine. It used to be important to be able to get mail sent there, but not really any more since you can get everything by email.
In the UK, you frequently have to provide a current tax or utility bill with your name and the address you're claiming, to show that you're the official owner / renter of that address. It's a considerable hassle when moving there.
are there any charities or organizations out there that are simply providing fixed addresses? I get that providing housing has a lot of challenges, but it seems like providing addresses to people for the sake of receiving mail and having an address to put on forms shouldn't be that difficult.
I'm not homeless, but I move relatively frequently and putting down my parents' address any time i need a more permanent address is a huge convenience for me
I find it strange that we are okay with business requiring our physical address. Maybe with some rare exceptions, I can't think of a good reason why these businesses need to know where we live. Even banks. Usually the reason given is security, anti money-laundering, anti-terrorism or whatever. But I think the real reason is government control and surveillance. We should not be okay with this.
[+] [-] version_five|3 years ago|reply
I think there needs to be more discussion about how we move away from addresses to some other kind of basis for taxation, education, health, etc (not blockchain), a real answer that lets me declare my residency on the highest territorial level possible and transact electronically or to a physical location I pick
[+] [-] bfz|3 years ago|reply
- Voting districts - obviously tied to physical land, with different styles of vote counting system per area, often according to local cultural needs. I come from a society where special voting considerations exist in order to achieve actual peace. Prior to that system being introduced, there was war. The right to vote and the manner in which the vote occurs is an essential and inalienable attribute of all democratic societies, often deeply saturated in historic customs taking centuries of diplomacy to achieve stability.
- Public services - voting and taxation are directly related to policy in a local area. The tax that I pay my local council is accountable almost directly to me because I can schedule an appointment with the very people whom I elect to spend my taxes as I desire. My physical address in that locale entitles me to an opinion on the use of those taxes, and a stake in ensuring awareness of local policy, and that the policy works for myself and the people around me.
- Land rights - a requirement for a physical address, or the alternative of no requirement for a physical address, (is/is not) an implicit endorsement of land ownership and encouraging long term placement of people within fixed communities. Community quality and composition varies greatly across every region of the world, and for folk spending most of their life inside cities, it is easy to forget the concept of a community exists. Establishing a physical local presence is essential for many kinds of growth, not least, starting a family and therefore the continued growth of a healthy society.
So to summarize, I think what bothers me is that the only possible way to arrive at what the parent comment suggests would be to avoid participating or contributing to any of these essential traits of civil society, which is to say it is an opinion explicitly rooted in contributing to civic decay. It's not "incredibly outdated", a physical address comes with many essential implications that ought to be encouraged.
[+] [-] Avamander|3 years ago|reply
So a digital identity system needs to be implemented. Something akin to what quite a few countries have already implemented.
I'm unsure why it would require more discussion at this point. It's not hypothetical science fiction without practical examples.
[+] [-] intellix|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] timthorn|3 years ago|reply
Or today, when companies assume that everyone has a mobile phone - if not a smartphone?
[+] [-] asah|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Spooky23|3 years ago|reply
In the US, people pitched a fit when the tax authority started requiring facial verification for sign in to access sensitive, vulnerable to fraud records, so it ain’t happening here.
The really rich people don’t really care, and nobody really cares about the really poor. Nobody cares in the least about the elderly. Everyone else has a home and has more to lose to the rampant fraud that happens when you make things like this easier.
[+] [-] Vladimof|3 years ago|reply
Lots of places still require a phone number (many email services do for example).
[+] [-] beamatronic|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] refurb|3 years ago|reply
Seem odd to design a whole new system for an edge case?
[+] [-] Hendrikto|3 years ago|reply
Why not?
[+] [-] syshum|3 years ago|reply
If I was in the EU I would support sovereignty of the nation states,and oppose efforts to make the EU Government all powerful
the move to make governments larger and all encompassing including calls for a 1 world government, are IMO a threat to individual freedom and will not have the desired effect you seem to think
[+] [-] throwmeariver1|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alar44|3 years ago|reply
Problem solved. No need to reorganize society for the 0.001%.
[+] [-] sandworm101|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shrumm|3 years ago|reply
Even foreigners with any kind of work permit get this ID called a RUT and are eligible.
[+] [-] danlugo92|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lettergram|3 years ago|reply
To me this reads as a dystopian nightmare. I want a bank account not associated with me in any way digitally or on paper; where I have total control.
Otherwise the government can seize my assets at a whim.
Funny story, in IL I have a bank account with chase. They decided to close the account because it wasn’t active (making regular deposits) (I’d do yearly deposits and use it to pay static bills) AND give it to the state. So the state of IL took custody of my bank account, without warning. I then received something in the mail I had to respond to within 10 days to get it back. I filed the paperwork, but nothing. Money just gone. I’m currently fighting to get my money back.
Anyway, the point is political actors can debank people they disagree with (see Wikileaks) and destroy them. Ideally, that wouldn’t be possible. The government should answer to the people, not control their people.
[+] [-] flower-giraffe|3 years ago|reply
The branch list does not include Camden Town where there are homeless people sleeping in the streets near HSBC.
The underlying issue here is that Covid has accelerated the transition to cashless digital first transactions that are controlled by private entities that have their own agenda.
[+] [-] petesergeant|3 years ago|reply
That's not really how London works though: less than a mile north of Notting Hill Gate you start to hit some areas of serious poverty: https://jamestrimble.github.io/imdmaps/eimd2015/ is a good tool for exploring.
[+] [-] whywhywhywhy|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dijit|3 years ago|reply
It was months of back and forth before they finally told me that I had offhandedly mentioned my salary and they wanted proof of that. Despite never needing proof before, and despite them being the bearer of my bank account so they could see this. I had to refuse to leave the HQ on Fleet Street for 4 hours before they even told me that.
They wouldn’t accept my payslip pdf as proof. So I walked across the street to Barclays and opened 3 accounts on the spot and never looked back.
Ironically to this topic, I had to close that account when I left the UK because I didn’t have a UK address. But HSBC handled my case really badly, I nearly lost my accommodation because of their opaque stalling (I need to prove direct debit before move-in). So I would never go back.
[+] [-] uuyi|3 years ago|reply
They transferred £2000 out of my account randomly one day with no cause or explanation when there was £118 available in it. The next day they froze the account and a specific contact at HSBC forced me to make a repayment arrangement for the money. I refused and opened a dispute and it took me 14 months to get it back and all fees incurred for entering an unarranged overdraft. It ruined my credit rating for 3 years. Every contact I made with them was handled by someone utterly incompetent or disinterested in solving the problem even when I involved a solicitor.
Never an apology, never an explanation, never a true resolution.
NEVER work with HSBC. ALWAYS keep your finances distributed between multiple accounts.
With Santander mostly now who so far, touch wood, have succeeded in not fucking anything up. Halifax as a backup.
[+] [-] ricardobayes|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vrdmn|3 years ago|reply
Walked across the street to HSBC and all they needed was a letter from my employer and I had my account in a few hours.
[+] [-] DoreenMichele|3 years ago|reply
Well, I hope it helps some people but color me unimpressed. It's hard to prove homelessness and some people don't qualify for services and etc.
I wish some bank would pull its head out of its butt, accept an email address as adequate contact info and let people pick things up at the local branch (like a new debit card).
Online banking is encouraged anytime you, say, try to call the bank these days. They have the capability to implement this.
They could do it quietly and not make it "a homeless program."
[+] [-] andai|3 years ago|reply
I wonder if the international anti terrorism / anti money laundering regulations are making that more difficult. For example N26 was under fire for not doing much to verify identities in this regard.
[+] [-] nightski|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] makeitdouble|3 years ago|reply
But I completely agree with your general point, in that banks could probably work with way less information than they are requiring now. For instance a valid ID with any proof that you reside in the country you open the bank account in should be enough, no need for an exact address, or proof of employment etc.
Currently most of their requests are to weed out low margin customers. Proof of it, there are actual banks that already work on a "prepaid" basis providing very little service outside of storing money, and they effectively only need an official ID and a phone number (provided the ID will have a residence and more info)
[+] [-] alar44|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sonthonax|3 years ago|reply
I eventually gave up trying to find a bank that would do passport only bank accounts. And just forged a few utility bills. HSBC, despite being the most onerous bank in terms of demanding documentation was the most lax in actually doing any due diligence.
[+] [-] Nextgrid|3 years ago|reply
The banks are only requiring them to cover their ass because the country seems to have accepted the idea that a utility bill is somehow an authoritative document, so they can claim their due diligence was up to scratch (well they're not wrong, as you can't reasonably do any better) if things go wrong.
[+] [-] rmccue|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ulzeraj|3 years ago|reply
How is this not considered a violation of human rights and dignity? Oh I forgot… gotta keep those unwashed 87% of the world population out of our pretty financial system.
[+] [-] johnywalks|3 years ago|reply
Isn't that the definition of a society?
[+] [-] wildrhythms|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pibechorro|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tarq0n|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nraynaud|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] napier|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] octoberfranklin|3 years ago|reply
I mean basically this should be called "We Let You Use Our Partners' Address Bank Account".
[+] [-] nivertech|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kevincox|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Andy_G11|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Animats|3 years ago|reply
"If you aren’t receiving support from Shelter or one of our other partners, you won’t be able to access the No Fixed Address programme. View the list of supporting charities. To access the scheme, you'll need to call the charity, or visit their website and complete an online referral form."
[+] [-] stevenjgarner|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] imtringued|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tlb|3 years ago|reply
In the UK, you frequently have to provide a current tax or utility bill with your name and the address you're claiming, to show that you're the official owner / renter of that address. It's a considerable hassle when moving there.
[+] [-] notatoad|3 years ago|reply
I'm not homeless, but I move relatively frequently and putting down my parents' address any time i need a more permanent address is a huge convenience for me
[+] [-] mdavis6890|3 years ago|reply