U.S. law, policies and regulations are resulting in Americans being denied access to basic banking services, in the U.S. and overseas.
As a direct result of existing and newly proposed U.S. regulations, many U.S. and overseas banks have closed accounts held by U.S. citizens living outside of the U.S., and many banking institutions outside the U.S. now refuse to open any new accounts for Americans.
The newly reinforced QI regulations are so burdensome that banks overseas are simply closing the accounts of American clients rather than implement complex and expensive new compliance and reporting requirements. Requiring non-U.S. banks to open their files to U.S. auditors in order to verify that U.S. citizens’ accounts had been properly declared is not only a very heavy administrative burden, it is an attempt to infringe on the sovereignty of other nations, and hence many have judged these new regulations unacceptable. Banking associations from several countries have indicated their intention to simply bar U.S. citizens from doing business with them rather than attempt to comply, and indeed numerous banks have already taken steps to close U.S. citizen accounts.
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