Two quick anecdotes from Japan: The bank that I used for 15 years sent me a postcard saying that, because they guessed by my name that I'm a foreigner, they were required to have me travel X00 miles to the branch where I opened my account to present my papers in person for KYC.
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Whereupon I called the bank and told the front line staff what the letter said. "Mr. McKenzie*, I expect we'll need a moment. Could you please give me a callback number." Five minutes later most senior person at the bank branch called me to apologize.
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For social reasons I won't recount their exact resolution of their compliance responsibilities, but it was a lot more reasonable than what the postcard suggested the policy was. * She actually said Mr. Hattori but I've done telephone customer service before and can empathize.
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"But why Hattori?" Because the Japanese pronunciation of my name, Patorikku Mikkenjii, sounds reasonably close and therefore gets confused a lot with Hattori Kenji (服部健二), which is a reasonable name for e.g. a Brazilian-of-Japanese-descent customer of that bank branch.
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Replying to @patio11
Questions: were your services suspended during this interim and at any point did you feel this procedure was unreasonable?
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Replying to @CasPiancey
They gave me N months to complete the procedure before suspension. My feelings regarding reasonability are complex: I accept that they may not have had discretion with regards to this request. "Foreigners are ipso facto high risk" is per se unreasonable.
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Replying to @patio11 @CasPiancey
"Explain 'May not have had discretion.'" Regulators have been known to say "In the interests of deterring money laundering and other abuse of our country's financial system, we require you to do enhanced due diligence on high risk accounts, including but not limited to..."
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Replying to @patio11 @CasPiancey
In that regulator's defense, another of their requirements, which was not received with universal enthusiasm, is: "The Ministry requires regulated institutions to make [standard bank] accounts available to foreigners without undue hindrance."
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Let me observe that the Japanese financial industry does have some institutions which in recent memory had official policy, and currently has some individuals who will confabulate a policy, to not serve foreigners. The regulator *really will* rake over coals if it finds that.
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