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Comment by belorn | Hacker News Reader

While the alternative financial service providers is taking the road of improved customer service, the banks are going the other way.

In Sweden, most ATMs is set at a maximum withdraw of 100$, while a few is set at $300. The bank itself also adds additional restriction of maximum $2000 per week. If you want to withdraw more of your own money, you have to ask permission and give a reasonable explanation why one is taking out "that much cash". Only if the bank approves of your reasons to withdraw money will you be able to do so.

All withdraws are of course logged, stored, traded and given away for inspection. I can also be held, for any reason the bank can think of or from outside pressure (like the Wikileaks visa scandal).

I fully understand why more and more people chose to avoid banks. Banks are services. If you voluntary give away your money to be owned and controlled by a third-party, they will indeed do so.

corrected: month -> week

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"In Sweden, most ATMs is set at a maximum withdraw of 100$, while a few is set at $300."

I think you did a conversion error from SEK to USD. Did you mean $1000 at a time?

The documents you referenced say Swedbank has a max of 8 000 SEK/day, Nordea's is 5 000 SEK/day, SEB has 10 000 SEK/day, and so on. (Under-16s have a limit of 1 000 SEK/week.)

That would correspond more to US$1,000 than $100.

FWIW, I had a limit of $200 or perhaps $300 when I lived in the US.

According to https://www.tcfbank.com/customer-service_tcf-convenience-ser... , a US bank, "The daily withdrawal limit varies by account. In general, you can withdraw a maximum of $500 daily." I think this is typical.

I've never pulled out more than $2000 per week from Swedbank. I do know they are an anti-cash bank, and want to get rid of handling cash. ("It's environmentally better if we don't have to drive the money around" and "It's safer because it prevents people from being robbed.")

Sweden doesn't even really like bank machines. See http://www.thelocal.se/50228/20130913/ - "Sweden second worst in EU for ATM shortage":

> pensioners staged a protest after another automatic teller machine was recently bricked up. Their actions prompted the Nordea bank to pledge to open a new ATM before the end of the year.

> Sweden is among the main countries leading the way for non-cash payments. Several businesses will now only accept cards while some bank branches don't handle cash at all.

> Swedish researcher Niklas Arvidsson recently wrote a report suggesting that the country could be cashless by 2030. However, he added for that to happen a complete ban on cash was likely needed.

The 8000 SEK/withdraw is only for ATM's located at the bank, and are been general dedicated to that banks customers. Bank ATMs has slowly been phased the last ~10 years with general ones (any custom of a bank can use them), and those has been spread out at malls and other similar places. Those however do not have an 8000 SEK withdraw limit, but rather around 1000-2000 SEK. ICA was one of the earlier adapters of those ATMs, and others has slowly followed suit.

However, I think you slightly missed my point. I do not say that Sweden is worse than the US. I merely wanted to point out that banks actually put in some real restrictions for taking out cash from ones own bank account. They are not holding my money for safe keeping, but rather providing a service where my money goes in, and I can get some out under circumstances they dictate, and only if they agree with it.

Hmm, somehow I forgot to include the ICA information in my previous reply.

http://www.swedbank.se/privat/kort-och-betalningar/kort/om-k... says you can take out up to 8 000:- per time, and up to 15 000:- in any 7 day period.

ICA's web site (just for reference, I have no real point here), at http://www.ica.se/ica-kort-bank/icas-kort/insattning-uttag/ says people with an ICA bank account can take out up to 3 000:- per occasion, and at most 15 000:- during a 4-day period.

You are right in that I didn't understand what your point was. Thank you for the clarification.

My updated point is that when I lived in the US I also had limits in what I could take from a bank machine. If I wanted to get more than that, I had to go to the bank itself.

You write: "If you want to withdraw more of your own money, you have to ask permission and give a reasonable explanation why one is taking out "that much cash". Only if the bank approves of your reasons to withdraw money will you be able to do so.", but what you've been pointing to have been bank machine limits, not cash withdraws.

It's not that I don't believe you. I know that Swedbank wants to get rid of dealing with cash. But do you have a reference for having to justify to the bank your need to withdraw the money?

As an extreme, and admittedly not likely case, what happens if they say "no" and you respond "I wish to close my accounts. Please give it to me in cash."?

(BTW, I live directly over a Swedbank, which makes it very easy to get to their own bank machine. :) )

The ICA link is about using one's ICA customer card for bank withdrawal while paying the cashier. Those ATMs I was referring to are separate machines in or outside the building.

When someone wants to withdraw more than the maximum per week, my guess is that the bank feels they need to ask questions to fulfill the requirements of the law from 2009 (http://www.penningtvatt.se/) that requires that bank to inquire the nature of the withdrawal. SVT had a story when the law was introduced, and their conclusion can be read in the Q/A at (http://www.svt.se/ug/chatt-om-penningtvatten).

I don't know what happens if you close your account, but my guess is that the law would still hold the cash in place.

The ICA link was mostly to point out that your stated limit of US$100/occasion is too low, even for ICA. The ICA web site says the limit is over $400.

Thanks for the links! At the very least it helps me understand the relation between Swedish and similar US laws.

In the US, if you deposit or withdraw more than $10,000, or do transactions that appear to be done to get around the limit (like successive transactions of $9,999; so called 'structuring'), then the bank is obligated to file a report.

However, that report is filed in secret to the Feds.

It is possible for a US bank to freeze an account that they suspect it being used for laundering. That's different than having a teller decide on the spot if something is suspicious or not.

Are you aware of people who haven't been able to take money out of their account because they didn't want to tell the cashier why they were doing it?

I just don't understand why you would even have a daily withdrawal limit. As soon as I opened my account I set mine to something silly like $10k per day so I would never have a problem with withdrawing money if I need it.

In the U.S. you don't have to give a reason for taking out your cash (though withdrawals over a certain amount are reported to the Feds). But there are ATM limits. I always assumed - perhaps naively - that the reason was to keep the ATM from running out of cash too quickly, thus minimizing the cost of replenishing them. And occasionally, on 3-day weekends, I have seen more out-of-order ATMS than usual. . .presumably because they had run out of money.

My impression is that it's to limit fraud. If someone steals your card an your PIN, the daily limit keeps the amount they can steal from your account before you discover the fraud reasonably low.

If for some reason you need a bunch of cash from an ATM, you can generally call your bank and have them temporarily raise the limit.

In the past (I haven't tried recently), a call to customer service could raise or remove your ATM limits.

Recall a recent hack/heist re ATM withdrawal limits: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2418841,00.asp

"The elimination of withdrawal limits enables the participants to withdraw literally unlimited amounts of cash until the operation is shut down," the U.S. attorney's office said.

That has not been my experience, ever. I only had "problems" with my bank once, that was when I was buying parachute equipment from France. The transfer went through, the bank contacted me and said "we have turned off international transfers from your account due to what we believe could be fraud committed by a third party". I contacted them, was told the cause of the "lock", said it was a legitimate transfer, they unlocked the international transfer thingy, really smooth.

I regularly withdraw money from ATMs in excess of 500 USD equiv.

I have not heard of this 2K USD equiv. / month thing either, is that the policy of your bank or is it regulatory? Do you have a source?

EDIT: I live in Sweden

Sorry, it was per week, not per month. Must have remembered wrong from last time I checked. Here is a good summery for most banks in Sweden: http://mfc.elmberg.net/2010/03/07/kontantuttag-vad-galler-fo...

The 8000kr per withdraw is for ATMs on the bank buildings. More common is those outside malls/shop, like ICA (http://www.swedbank.se/privat/kort-och-betalningar/kort/om-k...). However, I have seen some who increase those restrictions to half, so its a bit 50/50 if you get 1000 kr or 2000 kr (divide with 6.5 to get US dollar).

In this case, treat a bank like you would a family member; let them know that you will be out of the country for a period of time and they will make a note of it on your account. Whenever any transactions occur it may cause an automatic tripping of a flag on your account, but a human will be able to read the note. This has helped me greatly in the past.

PS: This can also (and should also) be done on your credit card accounts.

Wow, that's absurd. I can't imagine having to ask permission from my bank to withdraw money.

c. June 2011 I got quite involved in the Bitcoin scene and arranged to meet up with a guy at a local establishment and buy a large quantity of BTC from him. I walked into the bank and asked for $11k in cash and there were only two (small) things out of the ordinary: 1) the teller explained that she didn't have that much cash at her station and it would be a few minutes while she went to get it, and 2) a quick, non-invasive question about my intentions in an attempt to make sure I wasn't about to be the victim of a scam.

That is obscene. With my bank in Poland I can set any limit I like, directly through their website, and never had a problem with withdrawing even very large amounts of money.

Also, I would never open an account that is not 100% free to run. I anything happens, I don't want my account to be eating into my savings. So far, I am successful - my current account doesn't cost anything to run, there are absolutely no fees for withdrawing money at ATMS, and my Visa card costs $0.50 per month,but only if I don't use it to make at least $30 of payments each month,which I always do. So I never pay any fees.

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