Jaime Gomes I think banks must communicate to Authorities suspicious accounts but not to investigate. The last one would require more powers that I donβt believe a government would be pleasant to give away and neither do I.
You know that banks are controlled (or well, maybe a better word is "audited") by the government, and that banks have to adhere to all applicable laws, including laws that require them to check suspicious cases? Banks are not allowed to support money laundering and whatever other nasty stuff there is around and they can actually be held accountable for it (for at least some part). π
I'm not going to dive into the "payslip" being a private or non-private doc, I don't have the legal background for that, but knowing that bunq is checked by the authorities I'm >100% sure that they don't "just" ask for such documents. They want a guarantee that they uphold their part of the deal towards the authorities, and if you do not want to share I also completely understand that bunq would end the agreement (I mean, they carry the risk, if they are unsure, why would they take that risk?). Anyway, of course, suspicious activity is also reported to higher levels (authorities), but the bank itself also needs to perform quite some investigations into the origin of money. There's an entire Compliance department for that. π