Identity overdose: but are banks looking in the wrong places?

It was a curious Saturday morning. The company was doing a routine bank transfer to a supplier, but being the weekend needed one of us to go sign the paperwork at the bank, but after ten minutes at the counter I started to figure out what the real problem is. Identity matters; it's the battleground in crime for the next decade, so proving who we are will get tougher before it gets easier. But having passed the security questions, my bank then needed my passport to authorise the transfer.  That's odd for a bunch of reasons, not only that ths was my local branch so I'm known to the staff, but frustrating because a passport isn't something I normally carry around. After making a photocopy of it they still needed a photocopy of my cashcard - though rather oddly from an unrelated personal account. And then wanted to know why we were paying a supplier, without which they were unable to process the payment. Clearly unnecessary and positively intrusive. Conclusion? The counter staff are drowning in paperwork that's covering up for a weak identity process: either the first, second or third ID checks worked or they didn't. The process is highly inefficient and that in turn creates costs that as a customer I'm picking up. It's all the more concerning because that the first ID check must be flawed, so this overdose of identity at one step in the process is masking a more serious identity problem further upstream.

Comments

[lynette komidar]

Reminds me of the time I went in to see 'which' bank about my loan repayments. I was one year ahead in payments, then subsequently 'missed' a payment (as you would. I was fined! - what the!
Anyway, I digress. I went to the counter to make a withdrawal; I had forgotten my keycard. "the guy over there knows me," I said, pointing to the loans officer. This identification method did not provide me with any money unfortunately.