Dutch podcast interviews a few victims of obvious discrimination by ING. They sent a small payment to someone whose first name is the Arab equivalent of "John", and were hit with KYC questions. Both initially refused, but when ING threatened to close their bank account they relented.

They also interview a compliance supervisor at the bank who basically gave the "I'm just following orders" excuse, and is sorry that the victims "feel" discriminated.

The "explanation" given, though ING doesn't confirm it, is that there is some random terrorist out there with the same first name, so they ask everyone who mentions that name for full details. ING then pretends that the law requires this, because there's a "risk". This is utter nonsense in my opinion, and it would never happen if a terrorist had a common Dutch or English first name.

Banks are playing a cynical game here. They know they get a fine if they don't do sufficient anti-terrorism screening. They can probably use these nonsense investigations as a legal defense, using their customers as human shields. Meanwhile they know they'll never be prosecuted for discrimination, or extortion for that matter.

Bitcoin fixes this, but personally I'd like to see these Gestapo compliance officers, and their bosses, behind bars.