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Johan Leman, 9 June 2022

“Banks are legally obliged to provide a basic service,” wrote a professional journalist who happened to be present while one of Foyer’s employees was accompanying a lady who wanted to open an account at a bank counter and was “firmly sent away” by the bank clerk. I had just experienced the same thing myself.

When I asked around at Foyer, nobody was surprised. Those who were surprised, were only surprised that I did not know. When I wrote about it on fb, someone responded: “Refugees, asylum seekers, migrant workers in Europe are structurally harassed by the banking rules… Those without an address and who do not have a job at the same time, etc. cannot get a current account, but if you do not have a current account, you cannot arrange the rest of the things because you do not have a current account….”.

And this goes far… up to some CPASs. You have to have an account with some CPASs to get paid, and some add that you also have to have a bank card first.

I notice that, recently, at Foyer, some staff members needed several hours of work to open an account for a person asking them support, and then lost several more hours in contacts with Actiris – I know, it is not about the banks there – to make it possible for a low-skilled person who absolutely wants to work to be able to work like a normal person and get paid.

Could it be that it is easier in our country to open an account in the Cayman Islands? Will someone please check on the basic services that banks are legally obliged to provide? Who is complying with it? Just the Post Office Bank? Any other banks? By the way, the complaints I have heard during corona, including from entrepreneurs, about the inaccessibility of their bank… that is still another story.

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