Outside of the obvious money laundering issues, there are other regulatory reasons why a bank would need to verify where a person resides, including taxation, d

Outside of the obvious money laundering issues, there are other regulatory reasons why a bank would need to verify where a person resides, including taxation, data management requirements and if the person is even allowed to have an account in the first place. But I completely agree with your general point, in that banks could probably work with way less information than they are requiring now. For instance a valid ID with any proof that you reside in the country you open the bank account in should be enough, no need for an exact address, or proof of employment etc. Currently most of their requests are to weed out low margin customers. Proof of it, there are actual banks that already work on a "prepaid" basis providing very little service outside of storing money, and they effectively only need an official ID and a phone number (provided the ID will have a residence and more info)