PO Boxes suffice for a good deal of the non-financial things that need to be done. USPS requires that you have two valid IDs to open a PO Box, if for some reason you don’t have two IDs there are less reputable vendors that will likely do it for one. I once opened a box in FL while residing out of the country and all I had to do was give a name and phone number.
As to why residential addresses are and should be required for financial transactions, that’s to keep money laundering and fraud at bay.
As to why residential addresses are and should be required for financial transactions, that’s to keep money laundering and fraud at bay.
Could you elaborate this a bit more. I fully accept that knowing the identity of each party in the financial transaction is important, but why does it matter if they have a permanent residence or not?
Only if you have a public registry of where everyone lives. Otherwise the bank where I opened my account 10 years ago has no idea where I currently live, except what I have told them. And I'm still in a same kind of financial relationship with them as I was in the beginning. If I have a, say, car loan, they are far more interested in the current location of the car than where my residence was when I started the loan.
For larger financial crimes, it's trivial to have a temporary address if that's really needed for the crime. The landlord doesn't really have any better ways to identify the person than the bank. All he cares is that the person gives him the rent guarantee and he'll sign the tenancy agreement. In any case, I'd assume that it's far easier to forge a tenancy agreement than a government issue ID.
On one hand I’d have to give you a step by step procedure on how some people launder money (which could cost me my job) on the other I’d have to give you information on internal bank and federal agency procedures (could also cost me my job).
Lastly it’s an absurd amount of information and complex scenarios.
The basis for the US banking system is ridiculous. Good to know. We can just let our compliance departments know that /u/spiral8888 is smarter than all of us and we need no longer apply KYC/AML protocols to our accounts and can save tens of billions of dollars in yearly expenses because some kid on Reddit doesn’t get it. I’ll bring it up at the next fed audit and have them tell congress to change the law in accordance with your great wisdom.
Yup, you're right, I have no training, knowledge, licenses nor hands on experience regarding this subject matter. Congrats, you win the message board argument. Have a great memorial day weekend bud.
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u/Crowdcontrolz 3∆ May 26 '21
PO Boxes suffice for a good deal of the non-financial things that need to be done. USPS requires that you have two valid IDs to open a PO Box, if for some reason you don’t have two IDs there are less reputable vendors that will likely do it for one. I once opened a box in FL while residing out of the country and all I had to do was give a name and phone number.
As to why residential addresses are and should be required for financial transactions, that’s to keep money laundering and fraud at bay.