ING carried out extra checks on clients with foreign names

Human rights monitor College voor de Rechten van de Mens has found ING bank guilty of discrimination for authorising extra checks on two clients based on their foreign last names.

Banks are legally bound to check if transfers of over €15,000 are linked to money laundering or terrorism. The agency said that in the two cases brought for adjudication by the clients, the bank had been guilty of “illegal differentiation”.

A third case is still under consideration.

One of the claimants, Jalal Et-Talabi, had a transfer of just €100 blocked because of the Arabic name of the recipient. In the case of Anne Busser-Mohamed, payments were blocked because her husband has a foreign name.

“The college found that this predominantly happens when account holders are of non-Dutch extraction,” the verdict said.

Lawyer Jelle Klaas said the decision went beyond the vindication of his clients. “This can potentially happen to a large number of ING clients and it must stop,” he told website Nu.nl.

Et Talabi and Busser- Mohamed said they “hoped the decision would initiate a positive change at the ING ”.

In a response, the bank said it would take the decision very seriously. “We will improve the experiences of our clients in client investigations, for instance by explaining more clearly why we are asking questions,”  a spokesman told the news site.