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It seems like banking services should be available for all legal activities. Allowing (or forcing) the banks to discriminate against one subset of society enabl

It seems like banking services should be available for all legal activities. Allowing (or forcing) the banks to discriminate against one subset of society enables may be great if you hate that subset, but some day the tides may change and you'll end up on the receiving end.

duxup 2y ago
Don't banks make those business decisions all the time anyway?
devmor 2y ago
If a legal activity is heavily overrepresented by financial crime, as crypto is, it would be incredibly irresponsible not to take action from a regulatory level. A full-stop is surely overboard, but a pause on business related to this activity until mitigation strategies are implemented seems reasonable to me. For a microcosm example, I work in fintech and have had to pause all gift card processing on payment gateways due to insecure/improperly implemented payment forms belonging to integrators being used to test stolen gift cards or do refund scams.
- monero-xmr 2y ago
  Two of the most fraud areas of society are in SNAP benefits and improper Medicaid payments. Yet we never seem to take regulatory action to solve this over-representation of crime.
  - SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
    Because they don't pose systemic risk. If it were possible for a customer doing SNAP fraud to do so much damage that the stores they shop at are forced to close, there'd be a lot more regulation.
  - lotsofpulp 2y ago
    You can even rise to the level of US Senator if you defraud Medicare/Medicaid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Scott https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Scott
  - arrosenberg 2y ago
    Individuals who defraud those programs are regularly caught and prosecuted, the systemic offenders who get away with it are always wealthy and connected, and they wind up becoming the Governor and Senator of Florida instead of going to prison.
    - monero-xmr 2y ago
      I find it extremely hilarious you think there is a massive effort (up until now) to root out fraud in either of these programs
      - arrosenberg 2y ago
        You find something you made up hilarious? That's kind of sad, don't you think? I said individuals are routinely prosecuted, which doesn't take a massive effort, it takes a regular effort. It would take a massive effort to do something about Rick Scott's $100M+ fraud, and since he's in the Senate, you can be sure I don't think that.
        monero-xmr 2y ago
        I know someone involved in organized crime, and the entire crime is around stealing from Medicaid. The scam he is a component of involves hiring an immigrant to get into a contrived accident, then they go to their clinic to get treatment, then go to their specialists, and so on. All of it bilks Medicaid. There is literally no one who could care if I report this, and probably I would be killed. The mafia never disappeared. They just fleece the government now. Much safer than shaking down pizza shops
        arrosenberg 2y ago
        Cool story? Doesn’t conflict with what I said. Medicaid still does way more good than bad and has lower overhead and waste than private insurers. The alternative is the working poor dying in poverty from a lack of available care.
  - devmor 2y ago
    The USDA reported $43 million in SNAP fraud in 2024... of a $118 billion budget. I would like to see what source or comparison you used to determine that was one of the "most fraud areas of society".
    - monero-xmr 2y ago
      Ah yes, no one trades SNAP purchases for cash. I cannot roll my eyes harder
      - devmor 2y ago
        No one made that claim. That is a strawman argument.
        monero-xmr 2y ago
        You say the government found a tiny amount of fraud as evidence there is not fraud. My counterpoint the government doesn't have systems in place to ensure there is no fraud, and I know there is massive fraud, because I am friends with people who do this fraud. Why am I friends with them? Because I am an active member of my church and I help these people, and I know the way they work the system in order to earn cash. Additionally, I own many rental properties. Some of them I have rented via Section 8. And I am a good landlord, and my tenants trust me. So I sign their forms, and help them work the system, and I don't make them pay me the cash portion of the section 8 because I'm rich and I don't need it. I know how the scams work, the disability, the SNAP, the "my niece lives with me so I get extra payments". It's so incredibly easy to scam the system. I don't like this! I don't like the fraud! I'm not reporting these people, but it's so ingrained into the process it's just commonplace. I don't want an entire society of people who refuse to get gainful employment because it would jeopardize their welfare benefits. The system is fucked
        devmor 2y ago
        You put a great deal of prose behind it, but what you have said is “don’t trust data from the administrators of this program, trust my personal anecdotes”. That is not and should not be a compelling argument to anyone, for anything. Surely if fraud on the scale you fervently believe exists, someone is tracking it. Until you can present that evidence, there is absolutely no reason to treat your beliefs as even probable. Beyond that, by your admission you are a landlord who engages in crypto speculation. Two markets that provide you with profit that would be heavily stifled by common sense regulation. There is ample reason specifically to distrust anything you claim on this issue.
  - taude 2y ago
    You're not surely suggesting the scale of SNAP theft is anywhere near the potential of banks and crypto, are you?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
pjc50 2y ago
I've been skimming the first bit of this huge, heavily redacted PDF, and what I see so far is no discrimination against people but things of the form: - "if you are going to offer these services, please explain how you will comply with existing rules XYZ" - "you may not imply that crypto services are FDIC insured because they are not" - "you tried to claim you NFT involvement was like buying art for the branch, but you're still offering it to customers [i.e. you lied to the FDIC in your last letter]" Would be good if people could find things they're complaining about in the actual PDF, rather than generally re-litigating anecdotes. (US AML law is pretty onerous, but it's not really up to the banks or even the FDIC as to whether or not to comply with the law!)
lotsofpulp 2y ago
Electronic money accounts and ability to send and receive electronic money should be constitutionally protected rights (and government provided infrastructure). Governments can penalize people by fining them, but they should never be able to de facto revoke people’s ability to send and receive money.
- pjc50 2y ago
  "We must be able to use your service to send billions of dollars of fraud proceeds to Hamas" is never going to be politically sustainable. That's going to run into demands to Do Somthing very quickly. And that's before you get to the tax evasion questions.
SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
I would point towards the Synapse collapse as good illustration of why it's more complicated than this. You can't be agnostic as a bank to what your business clients are doing, because there's a wide variety of things they can do wrong that will become your problem.

duxup 2y ago

Don't banks make those business decisions all the time anyway?

devmor 2y ago

If a legal activity is heavily overrepresented by financial crime, as crypto is, it would be incredibly irresponsible not to take action from a regulatory level. A full-stop is surely overboard, but a pause on business related to this activity until mitigation strategies are implemented seems reasonable to me. For a microcosm example, I work in fintech and have had to pause all gift card processing on payment gateways due to insecure/improperly implemented payment forms belonging to integrators being used to test stolen gift cards or do refund scams.

monero-xmr 2y ago
Two of the most fraud areas of society are in SNAP benefits and improper Medicaid payments. Yet we never seem to take regulatory action to solve this over-representation of crime.
- SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
  Because they don't pose systemic risk. If it were possible for a customer doing SNAP fraud to do so much damage that the stores they shop at are forced to close, there'd be a lot more regulation.
- lotsofpulp 2y ago
  You can even rise to the level of US Senator if you defraud Medicare/Medicaid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Scott https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Scott
- arrosenberg 2y ago
  Individuals who defraud those programs are regularly caught and prosecuted, the systemic offenders who get away with it are always wealthy and connected, and they wind up becoming the Governor and Senator of Florida instead of going to prison.
  - monero-xmr 2y ago
    I find it extremely hilarious you think there is a massive effort (up until now) to root out fraud in either of these programs
    - arrosenberg 2y ago
      You find something you made up hilarious? That's kind of sad, don't you think? I said individuals are routinely prosecuted, which doesn't take a massive effort, it takes a regular effort. It would take a massive effort to do something about Rick Scott's $100M+ fraud, and since he's in the Senate, you can be sure I don't think that.
      - monero-xmr 2y ago
        I know someone involved in organized crime, and the entire crime is around stealing from Medicaid. The scam he is a component of involves hiring an immigrant to get into a contrived accident, then they go to their clinic to get treatment, then go to their specialists, and so on. All of it bilks Medicaid. There is literally no one who could care if I report this, and probably I would be killed. The mafia never disappeared. They just fleece the government now. Much safer than shaking down pizza shops
        arrosenberg 2y ago
        Cool story? Doesn’t conflict with what I said. Medicaid still does way more good than bad and has lower overhead and waste than private insurers. The alternative is the working poor dying in poverty from a lack of available care.
- devmor 2y ago
  The USDA reported $43 million in SNAP fraud in 2024... of a $118 billion budget. I would like to see what source or comparison you used to determine that was one of the "most fraud areas of society".
  - monero-xmr 2y ago
    Ah yes, no one trades SNAP purchases for cash. I cannot roll my eyes harder
    - devmor 2y ago
      No one made that claim. That is a strawman argument.
      - monero-xmr 2y ago
        You say the government found a tiny amount of fraud as evidence there is not fraud. My counterpoint the government doesn't have systems in place to ensure there is no fraud, and I know there is massive fraud, because I am friends with people who do this fraud. Why am I friends with them? Because I am an active member of my church and I help these people, and I know the way they work the system in order to earn cash. Additionally, I own many rental properties. Some of them I have rented via Section 8. And I am a good landlord, and my tenants trust me. So I sign their forms, and help them work the system, and I don't make them pay me the cash portion of the section 8 because I'm rich and I don't need it. I know how the scams work, the disability, the SNAP, the "my niece lives with me so I get extra payments". It's so incredibly easy to scam the system. I don't like this! I don't like the fraud! I'm not reporting these people, but it's so ingrained into the process it's just commonplace. I don't want an entire society of people who refuse to get gainful employment because it would jeopardize their welfare benefits. The system is fucked
        devmor 2y ago
        You put a great deal of prose behind it, but what you have said is “don’t trust data from the administrators of this program, trust my personal anecdotes”. That is not and should not be a compelling argument to anyone, for anything. Surely if fraud on the scale you fervently believe exists, someone is tracking it. Until you can present that evidence, there is absolutely no reason to treat your beliefs as even probable. Beyond that, by your admission you are a landlord who engages in crypto speculation. Two markets that provide you with profit that would be heavily stifled by common sense regulation. There is ample reason specifically to distrust anything you claim on this issue.
- taude 2y ago
  You're not surely suggesting the scale of SNAP theft is anywhere near the potential of banks and crypto, are you?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

pjc50 2y ago

I've been skimming the first bit of this huge, heavily redacted PDF, and what I see so far is no discrimination against people but things of the form: - "if you are going to offer these services, please explain how you will comply with existing rules XYZ" - "you may not imply that crypto services are FDIC insured because they are not" - "you tried to claim you NFT involvement was like buying art for the branch, but you're still offering it to customers [i.e. you lied to the FDIC in your last letter]" Would be good if people could find things they're complaining about in the actual PDF, rather than generally re-litigating anecdotes. (US AML law is pretty onerous, but it's not really up to the banks or even the FDIC as to whether or not to comply with the law!)

lotsofpulp 2y ago

Electronic money accounts and ability to send and receive electronic money should be constitutionally protected rights (and government provided infrastructure). Governments can penalize people by fining them, but they should never be able to de facto revoke people’s ability to send and receive money.

pjc50 2y ago
"We must be able to use your service to send billions of dollars of fraud proceeds to Hamas" is never going to be politically sustainable. That's going to run into demands to Do Somthing very quickly. And that's before you get to the tax evasion questions.

SpicyLemonZest 2y ago

I would point towards the Synapse collapse as good illustration of why it's more complicated than this. You can't be agnostic as a bank to what your business clients are doing, because there's a wide variety of things they can do wrong that will become your problem.