Nationwide bank suddenly requiring job title and salary etc on app?? Needs info before Jan 25?

[OctaveoOctober]

Has anyone else had this? In finding it exceeding intrusive??

I don't think it's that, I've had to do it for a different bank and I don't have a credit card with them

Oh OK well we might as well not bother then....

It's a new industry standard regulation that all financial institutions have to ask and hold the information about thier customers. It's not something nationwide has decided to ask. Everyone should be asking, they may just be asking in different ways!

@purplebeansprouts

Don't they already have this info by seeing my salary each month with my employers name attached?

Can't they see my info already and my statement?

I agree about the lack of action in other areas about money laundering. Does not mean any other action should be stopped.

If certain vapes are banned and children effectively stopped getting access easily, money launderers will be trying other new ways, I expect.

Now this pees me off immensely. I do get the need for it but my other bank made it so ridiculously hard. We had a family business account with them and trying to get my 85 year old parents to identify on an app on a phone they didn’t have. We literally couldn’t go into the bank they have used for 85 years with a passport to see a person. Ridiculous.

if they want to stop money laundering they’d be better off standing outside the 20 pudding parlors and 20 vape shops that stand empty on our high street but seem to be able to pay business rates and wages of numerous staff.

Maybe in your case they could write some kind of programme to extract the information but they can't do that for each individual account holder so they have to ask generic questions.

It's not a requirement to have a salary incoming to have a bank account

No. Your employer might be some random little company with a name that gives no clue to your profession. You could work for a fancy pants tech company but be a cleaner on a low wage or the CEO and be on a high wage. They don't actually care unless you're politically exposed or a high risk profession like "hand car wash owner"

I hope retired is on that occupation list as that is one of Nationwide's main customers

I'm going to hazard a guess that banks are aware of the retired and unemployed 😁

It shouldn't be a big issue to share your job title (or lack of one) and salary (or any source of income like benefits) with a bank that already deals with your financial information, unless you have a specific reason not to or just want to be difficult for no reason. Some people complain about everything.

It’s for anti money laundering regulations.

www.gov.uk/guidance/money-laundering-regulations-your-responsibilities

If people have issues with this, they should take it up with the regulators and law makers in the country.
Banks have a duty to refund victims of fraud and it’s a low bar for personal accountability. At the same time, the regulations insist you “know your client” and ensure no fraud takes place.
It’s very hard for banks to meet both of those requirements at once. Expect the questions to become even more intrusive.

I had to give my job title recently for a bank. There was a poor choice of job titles to choose from.

No they are not. It's about money laundering, unusual transactions, potential fraud.

None of the institutions I bank or have credit cards with have asked me yet. Good luck to them in identifying any sort of pattern. I'm self employed and my clients are erratic payers. I might have zero income for three months then have half my annual income land in my account on one day.

I don't think DH has been asked yet, he uses Nationwide. He won't like this.

AML checks have a place and purpose but after I received money from a deceased relative I believe they were the basis of the bank making my life extremely difficult for a few weeks afterwards. Stuff took ages and my debit card got a bit spotty for a few days; the low point was having my routine weekly online shop fail as my bank card wouldn't work, with funny messages coming up when I rang up to pay by phone. I had to call the bank and ask wtf. Apparently this txn had been flagged as unusual activity. I was purchasing from my usual supermarket, same day of the week and spending similar amount to previous transactions. It was the definition of a routine txn and I was furious. The CS agent had the grace to be apologetic challenged and my card did work again the next day I think.

A couple of weeks later my credit card - same bank - had similar when I was trying to book a quite urgent air bnb quite late in the evening so no one to call. It was the first time I used the site but I was not doing anything wrong. I used my debit card and ended up with a few things on the opposite cards I'd usually use for those types of payments . Fortunately we could afford it and no bad consequences but I was so angry that they could just do this to me. All of it was made extra stressful as we were also paying out lots of hard saved for money as deposits or installments for our wedding at the time and had a big payment due with money from my account the week my debit card was impacted and my account seemed to be under some sort of caution on the bank system.

I complained about all of this plus bank taking forever to cash the cheque whilst sending me daily helpful "suggestions" as to what I should do with the money they hadn't actually yet let me access at the time. I was dreading these shenanigans again when another relative passed and left me some money recently but nothing yet this time.

And the great irony is that they do all these checks and gather all the information but when people are conned into sending money to criminals, suddenly they can't trace the money and they have no idea who the account belongs to

Normally for good reason. The money usually goes into non-UK banks abroad where the UK authorities have no reach.

If its a drop down list my actual title is never on it so I go for the closest one. No big deal I have to provide that information just to buy home and car insurance anyway. Smart with mortgage. Who cares if they know as my salary does goes into my account they could figure out how much I earn anyway. What's the big deal if they know? They know how I spend my money every day lol

Lloyd's asked me via telephone. I refused to answer. That was that.

Yes my Nationwide is a secondary current account not my main one

It's really just the rules - it's not Nationwide persecuting you

It’s AML / anti fraud to help assess normal patterns on your account. It’s not just banks, I am getting the same from asset managers.

I might have to confess to being difficult on purpose because Nationwide don't have anything to do with my income, that is all paid into HSBC. They only see the regular amount transferred to the Joint Account. They can see where that is coming from - HSBC where it has already been subject to all the checks and balances.