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A change of address led to our Wise accounts being shut down

(shaun.nz)
325 points jemmyw | 5 comments | 30 Oct 25 22:41 UTC | HN request time: 0.36s | source
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htrp ◴[30 Oct 25 23:21 UTC] No.45766593[source]▶
It feels like particularly in finance, that startups who disrupt traditional players do so without a full understanding of all the corner cases and none of the regulatory accountability which is why those traditional finance players were so expensive in the first place.
replies(3): >>45766642 #>>45766719 #>>45766906 #
1. wmf ◴[30 Oct 25 23:26 UTC] No.45766642[source]▶
Is there any accountability for overly conservative KYC? My understanding from the whole debanking thing is no, at least in the US.
replies(2): >>45766946 #>>45768639 #
2. WJW ◴[31 Oct 25 00:08 UTC] No.45766946[source]▶
Kinda depends on how you define "accountability" of course, but rejecting paying customers is usually frowned upon in business. You want your KYC processes to be conservative enough not to get fined, but not so conservative that you lose out on potential revenue.

If you're too far off on either side, you either get fined by whatever regulator you fall under, or you get fined by the stock market because your competitors are more profitable.

replies(1): >>45768193 #
3. f33d5173 ◴[31 Oct 25 03:45 UTC] No.45768193[source]▶
Closing 1% of accounts instead of .1% of accounts for kyc reasons won't affect your revenue enough to matter to the stock market.
replies(1): >>45768931 #
4. shkkmo ◴[31 Oct 25 05:12 UTC] No.45768639[source]▶
There are international mechanismis for verifying that countries enforce AML stuff like KYC, but no mechanisms for measuring either how effectice it is nor what it's negative effects are.
5. csomar ◴[31 Oct 25 06:17 UTC] No.45768931{3}[source]▶
If you are closing 1% of your accounts every year, then you'd better be growing at more than 1% per year just to break even. If you don't have an appeal process, you'll eventually restrict everybody: Given enough time, some business/person will eventually do a weird transaction that flags them out.