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Debanking is deeply unfair but more so in our society that is moving increasingly towards a cash-less society. A person can be debanked for no fault of their ow

• XorNot 3y ago
  There's a very obvious utility in the US which should be able to prevent this: The US Postal Service. It's federally required to exist, and services all Americans already. Basic banking services should be one of the things it is expanded to provide in a minimal, safe fashion (i.e. no loans or lending, but guaranteed electronic banking and funds transfer services).
  • xkekjrktllss 3y ago
    The US Postal Service did serve as a bank from 1910-1966. It should simply restart.
    • Tao3300 3y ago
      We'll probably see people get demailed then too. They'll probably go for inmates first.
      • kitesay 3y ago
        Ask the homeless about their mail address. Not having a physical address is a huge problem.
        • jacquesm 3y ago
          Exactly, that's a non-starter for a whole pile of essential services. Which makes homelessness very easy to fall into but extremely hard to work your way back out of.
        • MrDrMcCoy 3y ago
          Post office should offer free services for receiving and holding mail for up to 30 days. Not necessarily a P.O. box, as there's limited space for that, but something they can get for you during business hours. Would significantly help the homeless and van-lifers.
          • willy_k 3y ago
            https://faq.usps.com/s/article/What-is-General-Delivery https://faq.usps.com/s/article/What-is-General-Delivery
      • deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    • robocat 3y ago
      In New Zealand the government added a bank (kiwibank) to the postal offices in 2001. However the postal offices are now being closed. I expect the same problem would occur with The US Postal Service shutting down branches? Also see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38158144 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38158144 https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwibank https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwibank
      • xkekjrktllss 3y ago
        What problem? What are you talking about? Specifically, what problem do post office banks have that private banks do not? Private banks close branches all the time.
        • robocat 3y ago
          In 2018: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/376881/new-zealand-post-to-close-79-shops-i-do-have-concerns-pm https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/376881/new-zealand-post-... New Zealand Post wants to shut its last 79 shops, but will not say when the last branch will close its doors New Zealand Post said the move from stand-alone stores was old news and 801 of its 880 stores were already franchised. Franchised means the branch has closed as a dedicated Post Office. Kiwibank originally had branches at the Post Offices. Kiwibank is left with much less branches than there were Post Offices - branches often replaced by ATMs in the wall: it has "325 Kiwibank Limited Branch and ATM Locations" https://kiwibank.banklocationmaps.co.nz/en/nzl https://kiwibank.banklocationmaps.co.nz/en/nzl I presume it will take much longer in the USA for the Post Offices to close. There is no reason something similar won't happen there - the same economic forces occur in the USA. Note that most franchises are an in-store counter or small area set aside for the Post Office supplies. I can think of franchises in book-stores, stationery shops, pharmacies, and even a public library. I know of one Post Office branch of that 79 that remains open, however it is mostly run by unpaid volunteers including a friend of mine (no banking counter).
  • lxm 3y ago
    > guaranteed electronic banking and funds transfer services That alone exceeds the requirement of “minimal” as there’s now a need to hire staff for fraud monitoring, handle disputed transactions, chase fraudulent transfers, deal with those who forgot their passwords to electronic banking, had their passwords stolen, etc. What are the new revenue channels that will pay for all that extra staff (and considering it’s USPS, their pensions)?
    • bmulcahy 3y ago
      >What are the new revenue channels that will pay for all that extra staff (and considering it’s USPS, their pensions)? The federal government, unlike most other entities, does not need to match new revenue to new spending. It can and does create new money for any spending it deems worth it. Funding basic banking for all through the USPS is worth it.
      • phpisthebest 3y ago
        >>> It can and does create new money for any spending it deems worth it. Yes, that is called inflation.... how is that working out for everyone that needs food, housing and energy?
        • eru 3y ago
          Well, the usual answer should be boring old taxes, not inflation, if you want to finance something that user fees don't cover. Just like it's done for nearly every other government programme?
        • zlg_codes 3y ago
          Today's inflation was caused by greedy market forces, collusion, and government loan fraud, by those same capitalists. Government spending on useful services, or helping their constituents get by on two one-time $600 payments did not create the current economic climate.
          • phpisthebest 3y ago
  • jimbob45 3y ago
    I don’t see the connection between the Postal Service and banking. Is it just it was historically there? If that’s the case, you could attach it to any department.
    • cragfar 3y ago
      It used to provide some limited banking services up until the 60s and it still does billions of dollars worth of money orders a year so a lot of the infrastructure is still there.
    • hwillis 3y ago
      banking does sometimes require actual money still, much more so if you're poorer. What's another institution that has offices everywhere, ships things every day, and privately and securely stores things for huge numbers of customers? Remember, DMVs/RMVs are state-level. Hell, they're even surprisingly used to keeping large amounts of valuable paper safe. It wasn't that long ago that you could make a lot of money stealing stamp sheets.
      • eru 3y ago
        > What's another institution that has offices everywhere, ships things every day, [...] Walmart or 7-11 or so? Jokes aside, giving banking licenses to retailers might be a sensible thing to do. (Or removing the whole system of banks requiring licenses altogether would be even better.)
        • landemva 3y ago
          Walmart does have banking. https://www.consumerreports.org/banks/is-banking-at-walmart-worth-it-a3165612052/ https://www.consumerreports.org/banks/is-banking-at-walmart-... "At its more than 4,600 in-store MoneyCenters, as well as online, millions of customers have access to basic, low-cost banking services, including the ability to withdraw cash, make deposits, and pay bills."
          • eru 3y ago
  • rodgerd 3y ago
    In New Zealand the bank that provides government departments with banking is required to provide "banking of last resort" facilities to people, even going so far as people who have (for example) done bank fraud. The facilities are minimal - no overdrafts or credit cards, obviously! - but provide enough to function in a society where cheques don't exist and cash is rarely used.
    • Scoundreller 3y ago
      Canada has a funny approach: banks can pretty much close an account willy-nilly but they're also required to open up a basic bank account to anyone that can properly prove their identity. Not sure how far anyone has pushed that envelope.
  • translucyd 3y ago
    We actually have this in Brazil. The mail provider from the state is in far away areas the only bank that exist in some places!
    • Aspos 3y ago
      Postal banking is a thing in half the world.
  • eru 3y ago
    > It's federally required to exist, [...] Are you talking about a specific law, or about the clause in your constitution? If the latter: the postal clause merely gives congress some powers, but does not require them to do anything.
  • Natsu 3y ago
    They should probably give people an email account that they can scan all your correspondence to for people who are without an address.
    • Ekaros 3y ago
      Funny thing is Finnish Posti (ex. Itella) kinda does it. They have online service where you sometimes get your mail "scanned" before it actually arrives. Probably due to them actually printing it (in better quality somehow?) and delivering to you.
• nicbou 3y ago
  My job is to help immigrants settle in Germany. This is a serious issue for a lot of immigrants. The documents they need to open a bank account (plastic residence permit, address registration certificate) are not available to them, sometimes for up to a year. The ways around it are poorly documented and change often as German banks tighten their KYC requirements.
  • jacquesm 3y ago
    Ironically those KYC requirements are there on account of the United States, not necessarily the Germans.
    • expertentipp 3y ago
      When once I was deregistered from an address (Abmeldung), the German bank instantly went apeshit hysterical with "Are you American?" letters. At least half dozen of them ignoring all of my previous responses or feedback. Of course I have nothing to do with US and none of my personal details indicate that I do, I'm fully EU person.
      • jacquesm 3y ago
        Indeed. US citizens moving to the EU regularly run into the fact that their citizenship makes it much harder to get a bankaccount (and sometimes even impossible). It's probably the biggest driver in people giving up their US citizenship (that and the ridiculous taxation rules).
    • csomar 3y ago
      Everyone here is not seeing the elephant in the room. No country will implement KYC on foreign money. It's free money. Yet, we live in world where pretty much every country requires a residence (and a dozen other documents) to open a bank account except, uhm, the USA. I find the money transfer system created in Malaysia to be interesting. It started as a transfer system between banks, then an e-wallet that you can use to pay in stores, then they added a Visa card, then they integrated with Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand where you can pay locally with your MYR wallet. Now they added a remittance service that basically acts as a SWIFT transfer (though it looks expensive). It seems like they have found a way around the KYC rules. I wonder how long they can keep at it before they get hammered and if they can increase their Fx integrations to more countries.
• Gareth321 3y ago
  This was and remains an important USP for cryptocurrencies. Security in one's ability to pay for goods and services is incredibly important for any currency. In Canada, the government effectively de-banked hundreds of people and froze their funds for participating in and donating to the trucker protest. As more and more people experience this loss of liberty, the need for free and secure transaction methods will grow. Governments and companies are becoming more oppressive, not less. For this reason, I see cryptocurrencies as inevitable. Eventually cash will be eliminated, and this will only leave cryptocurrencies. For the record, I am far from a "crypto bro." I understand all of their limitations, including high volatility. I am arguing that their value is quickly growing in relation to their risks.
  • jacquesm 3y ago
    Indeed. I've sent money to more than one individual over time that had no way of receiving it other than crypto. For instance, when you're homeless or in some third world country crypto may well be your only option (that, and WU but they're outrageously expensive and inconvenient).
  • delfinom 3y ago
    >I see cryptocurrencies as inevitable. Eventually cash will be eliminated, and this will only leave cryptocurrencies. Except, unless cryptocurrencies are tied to some brain implant so you cant lose the keys. There will be a need for a custodian for the average joe's key...and banks 2.0 here we come.
    • Gareth321 3y ago
      I agree, and I think banks 2.0 are already here: exchanges. Some of them offer credit cards, loans, leverage, investing, and savings accounts already. The catch is that they're largely unregulated, so I see a lot of people opting to keep their cryptocurrency in personal wallets. Like cash, if you lose your wallet, you lose your currency. So people might have a hardware wallet at home in a safe, and one which they top up when they do their shopping each day. In fact, wallets are safer than cash because currency can be retrieved if they're well designed. Bitcoin wallets, for example, merely hold a key to one's funds in the cloud. That key can be shared with multiple devices. Many offer retrieval methods using pass-phrases, which can be stored electronically or printed and kept in a safe or deposit box, for example. I'm not claiming crypto is better or more convenient today than banks. At least not for most people. My premise is that they will become more valuable over time relative to their risks and limitations.