An illegal, illogical and repressive business practice

Mar 28, 2013 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR:
A few days ago I attempted to apply for a re-loadable VISA card from the Regent Street branch of GBTI. I was required to provide proof of address and two forms of identification. I had 3 pieces of ID (driver’s licence, passport and National ID), I provided an extract from an EMS (Express Mail Service) envelope (with both sender’s and receiver’s address), it was rejected as a proof of address, the bank believed it was not authentic because it was handwritten; is there any other way in which EMS is prepared? Even though I believed that was ludicrous, I did not raise a voice of objection.
However I was in for the shocker of my life when I was told that government-issued documents were not acceptable proof of address which included a driver’s licence, TIN certificate, overseas shipping invoices attached to customs clearance certificates, a business registration and motor vehicle registration certificate.
The argument of the bank is that upon obtaining those documents there is no address verification at the issuing agency, as such they are not reliable. It is also extremely bizarre that the bank was not prepared to accept a sworn affidavit from a Commissioner of Oaths that judges and magistrates accept in depositions.
If the bank believes that these agencies should be a little more stringent or diligent in their information collection procedures then they should take that up with the agency and law makers, not take it out on poor customers.
We are on the precipice of failed a state when a private business entity, subordinate to the state, decides that government-issued and approved documents are invalid and do not meet their standards. Perhaps the board, directors, managers and staff of the bank have dreams of grandeur of running a parallel government. So let us disband the system of commissioners of oaths to affidavits, GRA and the Business Names Registrar (Deeds Registry) and while we are at it, let us relocate the Express Mail Service and the judicial offices to the seaside head office complex.
A private agency should not go around invalidating officially and legally issued sworn, tax, registration and/or trade documents, except the private entity has issued a proclamation that the state has failed, and has decided to usurp the functions of the state. In such circumstance, any private entity can set their own standard of acceptability for official documents. Who would stop Company X from accepting as valid, the name on an officially issued birth certificate, while rejecting the birth date or the place of birth as stated on the said certificate? It defies logic, doesn’t it?
All banks require proof of address to fulfill a legal statute that is aimed at eliminating money laundering, the prevention of international tax evasion (tax havens) and secret offshore banking transactions, and provide traceability for financing of international terrorist operations etc., so that customers should not be faceless gypsies. In the same breath, the international limit on such transactions is US$10,000. A G$100,000 (US$500) transaction (such as the one I was attempting to do) hardly qualifies to meet clothes laundering expenses, much less for creation of secret offshore banking, international tax evasion, terrorism financing and money laundering.
Judging from our last census and other available stats, we have an adult population of over 200,000 persons who are not principal property holders or heads of households and are not likely to have utility bills made out in their names. Then there is the huge squatter phenomenon where people just set up dwellings on dams or a piece of unsurveyed public land with no form of utility and no real postal address.
There is also the growing housekeeper phenomenon, where home owners migrate leaving a friend or relative (without official documentation) to tend their homes, coupled with the dying out of postal mails and the growth of BlackBerry Messenger, facebook, emails, e-greetings cards, skype, and a whole host of instant communication methods that make it difficult for one to have paper proof of an address outside of government-issued documents.
It is not proper (and probably illegal) for a non-state agency to refuse to accept official documents issued by the state. State documents are official in every respect for the duration of their validity period. We cannot have any Tom, Dick and Harry invalidating state documents and procedures at their own whim, even if the process utilized by the state is not entirely foolproof.
If the bank accepts a valid state-issued document with an address on it, it would have satisfied the bank’s obligation under the law. To add further onerous requirements to a customer is wholly unnecessary and in defiance of logic. How could you accept a driver’s licence as valid for ID purposes, but reject it as a proof of address, when the same document contains both sets of information? The document is complete and valid in its entirety and the information contained thereon cannot be left to private discretion. It is an offence for someone to lie about their address on an official state document such as those issued by GRA and Deeds Registry, and except the bank also wants to take over and run law enforcement, they should leave police work to the Guyana Police Force (Service) and other agencies so empowered by statute.
Furthermore, everyone in Guyana who has a National Identification (NID) Card has already fulfilled the legal requirements for a trace of location. GECOM’s house-to-house registration and the Claims and Objections was designed to sift village imposters, as such Guyanese living in Guyana in possession of NID have fulfilled the phantom-proof test.
The essential intent of the law is to prevent anonymous banking and I can’t see how one could be a phantom when (s)he is listed on a public list (at the risk of jail time for giving wrong information) in a particular village which is periodically scrutinized by villagers and political organizations to weed out false addressees. GECOM’s lists are public documents and copies of searchable electronic database should be requested by all banking institutions, and that should constitute sufficient proof of address. It is far more reliable than any other method available in Guyana.
Because the GBTI was being so unreasonably inflexible, I ended up doing business with the only other bank that offers this service. I was reluctant to do business with the other bank because of poor courtesy issues I had encountered at that bank in the recent past. I urge GBTI and other private entities (including a popular telephone company) to desist from this illegal, illogical and repressive business practice.
Lenno Craig

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