The Lemon Fool

It may be recalled that Selftrade went totally over the top in their interpretation or misinterpretation of what Money Laundering Regulations required. They were sold to Equiniti and withdrew most of the requirements before the hidden hand of the FCA could be confirmed or denied.

According to the Mail, it seems credit card companies, starting with M&S are going down the same route.

If you have several credit cards, the natural reaction to intrusive requirements from one of them is to close the account. Presumably businesses never set out to lose long standing customers, although you wonder sometimes.

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/card ... ntity.html
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/card ... hecks.html
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/ ... tails-scam

Horrifying. From the Guardian article:

"This week she received a letter asking me to provide photocopies of documents such as my passport, driving licence and tax details. Two had to include a photo, and they had to be notarised by a list of approved people."

There does appear to be a parallel with Selftrade:

"M&S Bank services are provided by HSBC, which has been in all sorts of bother with the authorities over money laundering. This is most likely part of the resulting clean-up."

I am glad that I have nothing to do with HSBC.