Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Being a millionaire is no where near enough for banks to look the other way.

They turn away millionaire accounts all the time. You need to have many hundreds of millions under management for them to do their diligence so you can open an account.

Most accounts under 10 million cannot even get cleared to trade high risk options. No way in hell they'll skip AML checks.



May be being a millionaire is not enough to get a non-hostile treatment from a bank but the problem is that the cost of compliance is of the same order for all customers (because reporting thresholds where exist are very low like €1K or $10K) but per-customer profit is different. This creates an incentive to disproportionately deny service to non-rich customers. This would be much less of a problem if government regulators where focused on people/entities which operate with truly large amounts of money so ordinary folks can stay under the radar and not be a burden for a bank. But for some reasons governments wants have a grip almost on everyone. So having below median wage as the main source of income doesn't not make one a low risk customer for a bank if there are other "risk" factors (like being an immigrant).




Consider applying for YC's Summer 2026 batch! Applications are open till May 4

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: