What I learned from being debanked

My own debanking story concerns a card rather than a bank account. Not the same degree of inconvenience as Nigel Farage, but a similarly telling insight into modern administrative culture. I feel awkward writing this, because in the 30 years I have used American Express, including an enjoyable decade when I also worked for the brand as a copywriter, few companies have impressed me more. They are unfailingly courteous and responsive. On many occasions, such as when arriving at an airport to discover I had to pay £4,000 for an unratified airline ticket, my card has been invaluable; I willingly follow their advice not to leave home without it.

But one evening last year Amex didn’t do nicely. There’s a special feeling to having a Platinum card declined. In Monaco or Palm Beach it might be fashionably raffish; this was at McDonald’s in Stratford-upon-Avon.

You must endlessly justify your productivity to the finance department, but how productive is your finance department? Nobody knows

Some months earlier, to comply with ‘anti-terrorism and money-laundering legislation’, they’d asked me for photographs of the passports of all cardholders on my account. I’d dutifully uploaded this information for my wife and daughters but not for my father, who is in his nineties, does not have a passport, lives 160 miles away and has no known ties to al Qaeda or the ’Ndrangheta. I naively assumed that since it is uncommon for a criminal organisation to confine its financial activities to fortnightly visits to M&S Simply Foods, this wouldn’t matter. I was wrong. I then missed the single email I was sent informing me of their intention to cancel all cards on my account for ever.