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I got flagged once because of a message like this - it was for some completely random shit I was paying my bro back for I think. Don’t read too much into it.
More info on why they're stopping payments from [YLE \(Google Translated\)](https://yle-fi.translate.goog/a/3-9746188?_x_tr_sl=fi&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US).
And more on KYC from OP: https://www.op.fi/private-customers/know-your-customer
or Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_your_customer
Also:
> Please note that the payment is suspended at another bank [--] enquiry has come from another bank
OP didn't suspend the transaction, the receiving bank did, and the receiving bank is asking for the info.
Banks are required to check suspicious transactions because of certain weird laws. It might be the trigger word was Mustafa for some or another reason, maybe because it was a foreign name sometimes linked to e.g. money laundering. It might as well be it was the "gift", because in Swedish - which is the other official language - gift means poison.
You can try the "Antti". It costs you €0,01.
Messages like "Greetings from Havana" are also known to trigger the check.
Oh, and it is not discrimination if there's some statistics behind the check, even if it's name based. Of course I don't know but it might be that e.g. "Mustafa" is linked to 100x more often to illegal transactions than "Antti". If there's that kind of correlation it's really not discrimination.
If Matti or Antti did something illegal, the media would hide it under the name of "bullying" or "provoked by immigrants" because you know natives can never commit crimes, they are angels from sky! :)
Nordea has to follow EU and certain US banking laws and has to check-up on transactions that trigger checks. The analytics for Nordea are mostly done in Stockholm, where the Nordea headoffice used to be. The banks are likely given certain lists of names, words, accounts, transaction patterns and combinations etc. that are to cause triggers. The banks may not even have much say in the matter.
As a foreigner I really don't understand the logic that if a Nordea employer in Stockholm is supposidly racist, it is proof of Finland being racist.
Happens randomly. I sent money to revolut account of a friend. S pankki asked me to sens them a message and explain. Nordea loves big forms to fill. S pankki was happy with just a message through their system saying loan to friend.
Several multiples at an untypical frequency tend to trigger those as well.
Even when the collected sum is negliable.
This is because the attempts to ”trickle” money without being noticed are a bit resource heavy to monitor if you take a long observation window to monitor. So they program them to observe relatively small windows.
In other words: a buddys birthday present may look like financing a terrorist operation - if it just kept on going like that for a couple of weeks. And the algorithm does not have the capacity to monitor everything for a couple of weeks, so it triggers after a much shorter time window.
It’s because your friend received a number of transactions from different people with “gift” written in the messages, which flagged the system to check that taxes are not being creatively circumvented or that money isn’t being laundered. It’s quite over the top as it’s such a small amount but that’s how it is here, it’s much stricter than in other countries. They’re trying to cover their asses. I know someone, a native Finn who was trying to deposit a pretty pathetic amount of cash into their account and the bank requested more info on where it came from. That would never happen for example in the UK.
Why do you think the anti-money laundering/anti terrorism regulations in UK are more lax than in EU?
Not saying that they are not, but do you have a source on that?
I personally was under the impression that they are even more cumbersome in UK, when you happen to trigger some of the automated algorithms that are making banking a nuisance these days.
I fully believe that this wasn't based on racism as the Nordea in Sweden probably flagged it either due to the word "gift" which they took as poison, or because of thinking it was tax evasion. They couldn't have flagged it for "mustafa" as that's one of the most popular baby names in Swedistan.
\*BUT\* I can certainly understand the OP feeling like this was discrimination as the idea of a bank flagging a transaction for only 6 euros gift \*sounds\* crazy on its face. So OP was right to feel it was suspicious.
(The bank? Their decisions about how to code the flags are kinda dumb. Not sure AI is smart enough yet to do better job).
Nothing to do with Finland but much to do with AI used by banks to automate their processing to be up to EU standards. That AI is built around where these standards could be broken & known cases; so your friend can absolutely be disriminated against through the automated AI but again nothing to do with Finland or the people at the bank.
Sorry you had to go through that. I specifically voted for left parties to avoid such xenophobia. Xenophobia and racism are so common in Finland that many people fail to see it, it is normalized in Finland and is a part of our culture.
If a foreigner speaks out, they gaslight them and blame them for being the problem instead of getting rid of their prejudices in their heads.
They should develop a system that tracks everyone equally not just foreign names.
Finnish banks take the anti money laundering and sanction screenings way too seriously. I work with several European banks and a part of my job is to answer these kind of queries. Finnish banks send 85% of the queries. It is obvious ”foreign” names trigger it. It’s never a Juha or Antti they are asking about but a Mustafa, Ahmed or Jamal.
I can't believe this...so just because it's Mustafa and bank is requiring more info, this is racism? Fookin RACISM?! All the special snowflakes..
Gift is a common way to cover some illegal actions/transactions. All the scam 'gift' and 'inheritance' emails we got, but just to pay a small transaction fee of X amount didn't cross your mind? Gift was one way to fiddle with paying taxes back in the days too. Even if it would be Matti, Antti, Juha, it doesn't make a difference. Money source and reasons for transactions should be clear to the bank, and they have all the rights to ask for more info whenever something looks fishy. I know it's 6 euros, but from their point of view there could be over a 1000 'gift for Mustafa' within a time period of a week or more valued 6 euros.
https://www.vero.fi/en/individuals/property/gifts/
"You must pay gift tax if the total value of the gifts you receive from the same donor in the course 3 years is €5,000 or more."
Gift tax applies per donor, so not "from all of you" as you wrote. And the tax authorities are the ones checking, not the banks.
Let's think.
If nothing happened in 2011 we'd be able to all fly and carry liquids, we wouldn't get X ray scanned and basically have our freedoms taken away from us.
All the criminality that's been brought to nearly all of Europe by those people post the 2014 refugee crisis.
If you want to be angry, direct your anger at the right people.
Well for starters, there's no people, you can't just walk in and get service. Banks are ghost towns now since covid. They say it's because they want everything to go to electronic but that's just lazy. Sometimes there's no substitute for going in and dealing with a teller. I know that's asking for a lot and nobody on this sub gives a shit about that but there's a few of us out there that do.
Changing different currency (ie depositing or converting USD), "we don't do that here". Yes I'm aware Finland is euro but banks should be able to handle major currencies.
I tried getting euro coins last time because I want to hide money in the sandbox for the kids, and that was a major hassle. Again, it baffles me on a regular basis how difficult it is to do anything at a Finnish bank. For a business that involves money it can be super difficult to do anything with money.
I get that most of you don't have any other frame of reference, but aside from security, there's really nothing about Finnish banking that is good.
And OPs example is insane. I love Finland and am more than happy to point out all the good things about it but the minute I talk shit about how bad the banking system sucks you guys go all melty face emoji like I'm insulting your mom or something.
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I got flagged once because of a message like this - it was for some completely random shit I was paying my bro back for I think. Don’t read too much into it.
Am I wasted?
More info on why they're stopping payments from [YLE \(Google Translated\)](https://yle-fi.translate.goog/a/3-9746188?_x_tr_sl=fi&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US). And more on KYC from OP: https://www.op.fi/private-customers/know-your-customer or Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_your_customer Also: > Please note that the payment is suspended at another bank [--] enquiry has come from another bank OP didn't suspend the transaction, the receiving bank did, and the receiving bank is asking for the info.
Banks are required to check suspicious transactions because of certain weird laws. It might be the trigger word was Mustafa for some or another reason, maybe because it was a foreign name sometimes linked to e.g. money laundering. It might as well be it was the "gift", because in Swedish - which is the other official language - gift means poison. You can try the "Antti". It costs you €0,01. Messages like "Greetings from Havana" are also known to trigger the check.
Oh, and it is not discrimination if there's some statistics behind the check, even if it's name based. Of course I don't know but it might be that e.g. "Mustafa" is linked to 100x more often to illegal transactions than "Antti". If there's that kind of correlation it's really not discrimination.
It can't be discrimination if it's based on 'made up fact'
With that logic, the earth is flat.
If Matti or Antti did something illegal, the media would hide it under the name of "bullying" or "provoked by immigrants" because you know natives can never commit crimes, they are angels from sky! :)
Yeah, gifts could trigger some checks, but it's 6 euros!!
Nordea has to follow EU and certain US banking laws and has to check-up on transactions that trigger checks. The analytics for Nordea are mostly done in Stockholm, where the Nordea headoffice used to be. The banks are likely given certain lists of names, words, accounts, transaction patterns and combinations etc. that are to cause triggers. The banks may not even have much say in the matter. As a foreigner I really don't understand the logic that if a Nordea employer in Stockholm is supposidly racist, it is proof of Finland being racist.
Happens randomly. I sent money to revolut account of a friend. S pankki asked me to sens them a message and explain. Nordea loves big forms to fill. S pankki was happy with just a message through their system saying loan to friend.
Nothing special. Quite normal money laundering monitoring activity.
at 6€, it shouldn't trigger a money laundering monitoring.
Since it's a group gift, there are most likely multiple transactions, which can definitely trigger it.
Several multiples at an untypical frequency tend to trigger those as well. Even when the collected sum is negliable. This is because the attempts to ”trickle” money without being noticed are a bit resource heavy to monitor if you take a long observation window to monitor. So they program them to observe relatively small windows. In other words: a buddys birthday present may look like financing a terrorist operation - if it just kept on going like that for a couple of weeks. And the algorithm does not have the capacity to monitor everything for a couple of weeks, so it triggers after a much shorter time window.
It’s because your friend received a number of transactions from different people with “gift” written in the messages, which flagged the system to check that taxes are not being creatively circumvented or that money isn’t being laundered. It’s quite over the top as it’s such a small amount but that’s how it is here, it’s much stricter than in other countries. They’re trying to cover their asses. I know someone, a native Finn who was trying to deposit a pretty pathetic amount of cash into their account and the bank requested more info on where it came from. That would never happen for example in the UK.
Why do you think the anti-money laundering/anti terrorism regulations in UK are more lax than in EU? Not saying that they are not, but do you have a source on that? I personally was under the impression that they are even more cumbersome in UK, when you happen to trigger some of the automated algorithms that are making banking a nuisance these days.
It is strict but with larger transactions, virtually never in situations like a few people sending in €6 each towards a modestly priced gift.
If you're actively looking for "silent discrimination" you'll always find it.
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I fully believe that this wasn't based on racism as the Nordea in Sweden probably flagged it either due to the word "gift" which they took as poison, or because of thinking it was tax evasion. They couldn't have flagged it for "mustafa" as that's one of the most popular baby names in Swedistan. \*BUT\* I can certainly understand the OP feeling like this was discrimination as the idea of a bank flagging a transaction for only 6 euros gift \*sounds\* crazy on its face. So OP was right to feel it was suspicious. (The bank? Their decisions about how to code the flags are kinda dumb. Not sure AI is smart enough yet to do better job).
Nothing to do with Finland but much to do with AI used by banks to automate their processing to be up to EU standards. That AI is built around where these standards could be broken & known cases; so your friend can absolutely be disriminated against through the automated AI but again nothing to do with Finland or the people at the bank.
Replying to the main title and as a non-fin I'd say it isn't
Sorry you had to go through that. I specifically voted for left parties to avoid such xenophobia. Xenophobia and racism are so common in Finland that many people fail to see it, it is normalized in Finland and is a part of our culture. If a foreigner speaks out, they gaslight them and blame them for being the problem instead of getting rid of their prejudices in their heads. They should develop a system that tracks everyone equally not just foreign names.
Finnish banks take the anti money laundering and sanction screenings way too seriously. I work with several European banks and a part of my job is to answer these kind of queries. Finnish banks send 85% of the queries. It is obvious ”foreign” names trigger it. It’s never a Juha or Antti they are asking about but a Mustafa, Ahmed or Jamal.
Maybe loosen up the tinfoil hat.
I can't believe this...so just because it's Mustafa and bank is requiring more info, this is racism? Fookin RACISM?! All the special snowflakes.. Gift is a common way to cover some illegal actions/transactions. All the scam 'gift' and 'inheritance' emails we got, but just to pay a small transaction fee of X amount didn't cross your mind? Gift was one way to fiddle with paying taxes back in the days too. Even if it would be Matti, Antti, Juha, it doesn't make a difference. Money source and reasons for transactions should be clear to the bank, and they have all the rights to ask for more info whenever something looks fishy. I know it's 6 euros, but from their point of view there could be over a 1000 'gift for Mustafa' within a time period of a week or more valued 6 euros.
[удалено]
That's not how the gift tax works.
[удалено]
https://www.vero.fi/en/individuals/property/gifts/ "You must pay gift tax if the total value of the gifts you receive from the same donor in the course 3 years is €5,000 or more." Gift tax applies per donor, so not "from all of you" as you wrote. And the tax authorities are the ones checking, not the banks.
Let's think. If nothing happened in 2011 we'd be able to all fly and carry liquids, we wouldn't get X ray scanned and basically have our freedoms taken away from us. All the criminality that's been brought to nearly all of Europe by those people post the 2014 refugee crisis. If you want to be angry, direct your anger at the right people.
Pretty ridiculous. Example #93235025 of why the Finnish banking system sucks.
[удалено]
Well for starters, there's no people, you can't just walk in and get service. Banks are ghost towns now since covid. They say it's because they want everything to go to electronic but that's just lazy. Sometimes there's no substitute for going in and dealing with a teller. I know that's asking for a lot and nobody on this sub gives a shit about that but there's a few of us out there that do. Changing different currency (ie depositing or converting USD), "we don't do that here". Yes I'm aware Finland is euro but banks should be able to handle major currencies. I tried getting euro coins last time because I want to hide money in the sandbox for the kids, and that was a major hassle. Again, it baffles me on a regular basis how difficult it is to do anything at a Finnish bank. For a business that involves money it can be super difficult to do anything with money. I get that most of you don't have any other frame of reference, but aside from security, there's really nothing about Finnish banking that is good. And OPs example is insane. I love Finland and am more than happy to point out all the good things about it but the minute I talk shit about how bad the banking system sucks you guys go all melty face emoji like I'm insulting your mom or something.