Child Bank Accounts - Discrimination

[WireLand]

I'm writing about my wife's experience today with Santander, trying to open account for my children. When we made the appointment we were asked to bring their passports and a driving licence, which we did.
After all the usual waiting, getting in, data processing, the clerk went off to photocopy the ID documents. After a few minutes she returned saying they couldn't process the documents because my wife's surname (we used her driving licence) is different to our children's surname.
I was outraged.
Has anyone else faced this discrimination? How on Earth in this day and age can a high street bank treat mother's in this this way?
Have any mums (or dads) with different surnames to children had this problem?

Children with driving licences? Now you're being an idiot, Patti.

I think they should require the birth certificate anyway, the same surname does not prove you are related. I needed the birth certificate and my marriage certificate as well as I have reverted to my maiden name.

Your OP isn't entirely clear on first reading whose driving licence you mean, you'll see I apologised for getting it wrong.

Again I'll say you seem to be taking this way too personally, money laundering and identification rules by their nature are a bit one size fits all and will have imperfections but no one is trying to suggest you or your children are drug dealers, what a silly thing to say

Maybe the person in the branch made a mistake, get over yourself with discrimination nonsense

Iceweasel, if they asked for a birth certificate as standard, fine, but they didn't. The issue arose simply because my wife has a different name.
She is also Asian, but I haven't mention this so far as I wanted to see if anyone else with different names had an issue with different surnames, before bringing in a possible racial element.
So far several responses have mentioned they had no issue with having different names.

🙄

my dd's name is double barrelled with mine and dp's last names. santander wouldn't let me open a bank account for her on my own. i had my id and her birth certificate with me

It's really really common for parents, either parent to not share a surname with their child. Whatever the reason for you not being able to open the account it was unlikely to be solely down to this fact. Your responses here are a bit on the impatient side. People are telling you that they have not had the same issue you have experienced and that there is maybe some other factor. It sounds more like a misunderstanding than discrimination.
Try again and be calm and polite to the bank people and maybe call and ask again exactly what you need. and I am sure you will be able to get the account you want.

wontbedoingthat, the facts are as they are laid out. Everything she was asked to bring she brought.
Would a white mother with a different name be refused?

Yes they would - stop seeing discrimination where there isn't any.

Honest to god.

You clearly haven't got a baldy-bap about the boxes that bank staff need to tick to satisfy anti-money laundering legislation. I can guarantee the branch staff didn't relish telling you or your wife they couldn't open the account without the correct KYC documents being provided.

It's not discrimination- this is a situation that could reasonably happen to any parent with a surname that differs from their children regardless of their sex or race.

I can assure you those staff members don't make these decisions and certainly don't get paid enough to have to listen to someone making baseless accusations of discrimination.

If you genuinely feel there was discrimination then we don't live your life and you feel what you feel. But, discrimination for having different names as you asked in your first post is not likely. Any other form of discrimination based on your race is another matter. Do you feel that if all events were the same, a white, british family would not have been rejected for the account? That's not quite what you originally asked.
If the bank person felt like there was a reason to be suspicious, they may have been trained to be on the look out to prevent identity fraud. Their own personal biases could affect how they perceive something suspicious, which could amount to a form of discrimination. However, you have not outright been refused an account. You simply need to go back with all the documents, including additional birth certificates. If they still refuse you an account, then you've a complaint to make. The inconvenience to you if having to return because a person doesn't trust you, based on your colour or race, is not acceptable. If this is what has happened you would be perfectly within your rights to make a complaint about that itself, perhaps staff need to be consistent with their assessment of what documentation is and is not acceptable to authorise a new account.
I am sure if you have all the right documents you'll end up getting what you want, but you could always go to a different bank, making your point with your feet.

dinosaurkisses, If a bank doubt's the authenticity of passports and driving licences, then it should say so. Money laundering isn't common amongst people showing correct formal IDs and opening a children's account, and is a red herring.

wontbedoingthat, the race issue is a concern, and as I've said I didn't mention my wife's race at first as I wanted to see the responses. The initial responses could suggest that it was a race issue, as others in a similar situation didn't have a problem.
The difficulty will always be proving that race was an issue. BTW, the clerk was given the IDs at the beginning as looked at them. She didn't raise the issue of surnames at the beginning of the session. It was only after she left the room and took the ID out to photocopy, she returned and made it an issue.

It may be a red herring to you OP, but I can assure you the consequences for the clerk opening the account and the branch itself would be severe if it was found that they hadn't collected the correct information on opening an account during an audit.

This is not the case of a clerk getting uppity, it's them protecting their job and employer by ensuring they have met the requirements of various pieces of anti money laundering legislation and internal processes.

Whether or not you think it's likely your wife is attempting to start a internal money laundering operation through your child's junior saver account is immaterial.

I opened bank accounts for my nephews with no problems and we don't have the same name. I can't understand the problem.

You can't determine it's a race issue because you don't know the race of posters that said they didn't have an issue.
I said i didn't have an issue. I didn't disclose my race in my previous post. You are assuming that posters are white.

It's the missing birth certificate here that's the issue. There's no discrimination. The documents you took left doubt about the relationship, that's all. The bank made a mistake in assuming your wife would have the same surname. That's the issue here. They can't make exceptions to the rules.

I opened an account for my DC with a different surname with no issue. I must have used the BC as DC wouldn't have had a passport at the time.

There's a good chance your wife will also have problems travelling with the children at some point if you aren't with them.

OP, I wear a headscarf and am South Asian. Like I said in my previous post, I just took in my passport and DS' passport to open his bank account. It just sounds like they were being a pain, unless you have any other information that makes you think they were discriminating against you.

Dyoumind, my wife has travelled with the children, without me, to over a dozen countries and never had a problem.

Ok OP, but it's perfectly possible that at some point she will have a problem travelling if she doesn't have the same name as them. If she's done so much travelling with them without issues she's been lucky.

UPDATE: We have opened accounts with Halifax using exactly the same documents presented to Santander. No problems opening the accounts.