Bank clients do experience discrimination: finance min research

Finance ministry research has found that youngsters and people with ethnic minority roots are more likely to experience discrimination at the hand of banks. In total, one in 10 people say they have experienced discrimination in their contact with financial institutions

In particular, the “exaggerated” number of questions bank customers are asked about certain payments are experienced as discrimination, the finance ministry said, with people questioning why their bank needs so much information.

“I was asked how long I had lived in the Netherlands and what neighbourhood I lived in,” one respondent said. “I was also asked about my ethnicity.” Another respondent said his Russian wife had been questioned about her “relationship” with a supermarket and if she could prove she had been buying groceries.

Finance minister Steven van Weyenburg described the examples in the new report as “very serious”. Banks, he said, should only be asking for information if it is really necessary, he said. “It is as important for banks and payment systems to prevent discrimination as it is for them to comply with the law,” he told broadcaster NOS.

The Dutch banking association said it is currently working on measures to stop discrimination following a number of recent talks with clients with roots outside the Netherlands.

Rotterdam mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb told the Guardian recently that he had been questioned about money laundering. “My uncle needed surgery for an angioplasty. I transferred €9,000 for it, and I was investigated down to my socks by the system I used to transfer the money,” he said.

“This has to stop and it has to stop now. Tens of thousands of migrants are victims, because the €200 they transfer to their aunt is being examined so strictly.”