Bank Account Struggle- Last Part

In order to make it clear for the people who don’t have any information about those regulations. I am going to give the details of the regulations here so that other asylum seekers could also fight with bankers about their rights.

During the presentation by a representative of the Department of Justice Ireland, we the asylum seekers were given a booklet, titled as;

LMA 7 INFORMATION BOOKLET LABOUR MARKET ACCESS FOR INTERNATIONAL PROTECTION APPLICANTS

In which there was information regarding opening an account in the bank. The information as provided by them was this

“The EU Payment Accounts Directive (i) was transposed in Ireland by way of the European Union (Payment Accounts) Regulations 2016 (ii). As a result, since 18 September 2016, any consumer who is legally resident in the European Union and who does not already have a payment account with a credit institution in the State has the right to open and use a payment account with basic features.

Regulation 15 of the European Union (Payment Accounts) Regulations 2016 explicitly states that a consumer who is legally resident in the European Union (within the meaning of Article 2(2) of the EU Payment Accounts Directive) (iii) has this right regardless of his or her place of residence and regardless of whether he or she has a fixed address, is an asylum seeker, or is a consumer who has not been granted a residence permit but whose expulsion is not possible for legal or practical reasons.

A payment account with basic features is like a regular payment account in several respects but does not offer credit facilities i.e. overdrafts. All of the credit institutions provide payment accounts with basic features. These accounts are free of charge for the first year for regular payment transactions in euro within the European Union. The credit institution may charge a reasonable fee for non-euro transactions and transactions to non-EU countries.

Where the consumer lodges less than the equivalent of national minimum wage to the account in a year (currently €19,240) the account stays free of charge on a year-by-year basis for five years. After that, the credit institution can charge reasonable fees.

When opening a bank account the standard documentation which may be used for the purpose of verifying identity is one item of photographic ID (typically to verify name and date of birth) and one item of non-photographic IDs (typically to verify address). This does not prevent the use of two documents under the heading "Photographic ID" for the identification of name, date of birth and address. Depending on the risk assessment of the customer, additional ID verification may be required.

Guidelines on the prevention of the use of the financial system for the purpose of money laundering and terrorist financing are available on website of the Department of Finance (iv). Appendix 2 of these guidelines is a non-exhaustive and non-mandatory list of alternative documents that can be used to verify identity in circumstances where a prospective customer cannot, for justifiable reasons, meet the standard identification and verification requirements, or has experienced difficulties in the past when seeking to open accounts.

i. Directive 2014/92/EU of the European Parliament and of the Councilof 23 July 2014.

ii. S.I. No. 482 of 2016.

iii. "legally resident in the Union’ means where a natural person has the right to reside in a Member State by virtue of Union or national law, including consumers with no fixed address and persons seeking asylum under the Geneva Convention of 28 July 1951 Relating to the Status of Refugees, the Protocol thereto of 31 January 1967 and other relevant international treaties."

iv. http://finance.gov.ie/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Criminaljustice2012.pdf.”

This booklet(you can find it here)  But with all these laws in my favour what happened in the bank with me, let me explain.

Incident at the AIB

Financial Institutions run the countries so they have kind of hold over the laws of the country and can pretty much pick and choose from the given laws. So that’s what happened with me. When I approached the banks with the information I was provided by the justice office. Initially they treated me with sort of humiliating manner and refused to open an account but after pressing them about the laws and my rights, AIB opened an account for me on  the basis of my PPS and all the other documents which were provided to me by the justice office including their signed Letters and Labour Market Access Permission.

AIB opened my account reluctantly but did not activate it. After that when I tried to use the account after a week it was not active or was shown as invalid in the ATM machine. So I contacted the bank and I was informed by the staff that AIB had a high-level meeting with the govt officials and they agreed that the account for asylum seekers with the documents provided to them by justice office should not be opened and I was forced by the bank to write a letter to get the certified copies of my Passport and other ID’s from the Justice Office. They assured me that if I get the attested copies from the justice Office, they will activate my account.

Now the issue is according to the EU directive an asylum seeker is allowed to have an account opened in EU and an asylum seeker can be the one without any documents of some sort. Sometimes they flee from war torn countries without proper documents or get smuggled.

My Identity
But my problem is that I provided my real documents to the justice office confirming my Identity but I was given a card by them which stated on the face of it that this card does not confirm the identity of the person.

I tried to follow the law and co-operate with the authorities. This was the reward that my identity was confirmed until I handed my passport to the authorities. After that my identity became doubtful.

The people who claim asylum and never provide the Identity documents, they are hard to deport as their country of origin is not known. They use their Identity documents to open an account in EU but fool the Official authorities, they are better as they play with rules. People like me follow the rules and get stuck. 

Other than that as per EU directive, I am a legally resident person in EU, as I have already spent more than 3 years in Ireland but bank actually refused me that right as well.

Now I have written to the justice office about providing me with the attested copies of my Identity documents but I am still waiting till today i.e.07-08-2018, whereas I applied for the account before 23rd of July 2018.

It could be possible that AIB might have settled with the justice office that they would not honor such requests of the asylum seekers, I don’t know.

I still have not contacted the banking ombudsman about it. I don’t know whether my complaint would be honored there or not as these financial institutions are so powerful that no authority would dare take any action. Only the powerless people suffer like us.

Note: My Bank account got activated, how, read here.