De-Banking – The Power to Take Away All Of Your Money
Take a moment to reflect on the following which was published on the Australian Government AUSTRAC website on 29 October 2021. To ensure that you understand that there is no bias in this article, the opening paragraphs are reprinted here:
“The issue of de-banking is a complex global problem. Over the past decade, the range of businesses impacted by a loss or limitation of access to banking services has expanded. Money transfer (remitters), digital currency exchanges, not-for-profit organisations (NPO) and financial technology (FinTech) businesses are disproportionally facing bank account closures. Banking services in the Pacific region previously enabled through Australian banks are also at risk. We understand, there are multiple drivers both domestically and internationally including:
- commercial considerations, for example the profitability of providing banking services to high-risk customers
- reputational risk
- uncertainty associated with the business model of customers, particularly emerging businesses
- broader environmental, social and corporate policy considerations of institutions
- expectations of overseas correspondent banks in relation to Australian institutions
- compliance with sanctions requirements
- compliance with anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing requirements.
The effect of de-banking of legitimate and lawful financial services businesses can increase the risks of money laundering and terrorism financing and negatively impacts Australia’s economy. For this reason, AUSTRAC continues to discourage the indiscriminate and widespread closure of accounts across entire financial services sectors.
Like the banking sector, new and emerging financial services businesses, money transfer and not-for-profit businesses facilitating overseas transactions and new payment models are at risk of being exploited by criminals. Like the banking sector, these businesses provide valuable services to communities in Australia and internationally and contribute to Australia’s economic prosperity. These businesses vulnerable to exploitation should not automatically have their accounts closed simply to avoid managing risk.”
De-Banking Can Affect Anybody
The article mentions that banks are able to close a bank account which contains your assets, at their discretion. Let me make this absolutely clear. This is not exclusive to Australian Banks and we have seen this done extensively in both the USA and Canada recently.
Define – “Risk”
Furthermore, the term “risk” is so broad, that it encompasses, a lot more than just our usual criminals. The liberal term “risk” has been used quite often in the last 3 years in many western countries to describe people with dissenting views to their government.
From the stories relayed by the people involved in such actions, they describe it like this:- “I tried to get some money out of my account but I got an ‘access denied’ message”. When they contact the bank they are told that their bank account is closed, but no reason is given by the bank as to why the account is closed. They are given no advance notice, so they cannot withdraw money prior to the event.
Manage Your Own Risk
If you have your assets in a bank now, seriously consider the following as potential excuses that can be used to stop you from accessing your money:
- You publicly disagree with a government policy and the government convinces the bank that you are a “high risk”. Human judgement, guilty until you can provide legal defence for your actions. (This is out of the budget of most individuals).
- You participate in some activity that the Artificial Intelligent (AI) assessment system at the bank deems to be high risk. The quality of AI systems to provide consistent high quality assessments of situations has not been proven. The data used to the make the assessments in the AI models is again biased by tech companies, social media, fact-checkers, etc.
- You have an indirect connection to a person that is targeted by the previous criteria (family member, co-worker, etc.)
- You showed up at a protest rally and your phone was identified by the mass surveillance at the rally.
- Your home PC was compromised by a cybercriminal and you are now considered by the bank to be a party to any further crimes committed by them, using your PC, or identification details.
- You failed to comply with a government mandate.
- You racked up penalties in a new social credit system, similar to what is currently running in China. These systems are on the horizon in most countries now.
- Your Digital ID is fraudulently used to purchase an illegal item.
From this short list above, there is not one “crime” that warrants this type of behaviour, by the banks. In Australia there are a number of banks who have done this to individuals, so the problem is widespread and certainly has no national boundaries.
Protect Your Assets Today – Before Its Too Late
I suggest that 2023, is the year that you need to take control of your assets.
- The popular alternative to banks for storage of assets are still bullion (precious metals) and cash.
- Seriously consider the implications above when you sign-up for a digital currency system run by a financial institution, including the reserve bank. If you find the whole issue disgraceful, then perhaps consider working through your own political channels to stop the implementation of digital currencies, or cashless commerce.
- Oppose the introduction of Digital IDs. This is such a bad idea as it ties an entity which pretends to identify you, to assets that you actually own. Comprise in the security of such a centralised system, at any point, would result in you being “flagged” as “high risk”, with no way to escape, or defend yourself.