Yeah I'm not sure why I would really care about the motivations of the bank. If I need them to be a store of money that I can move in and out and I'm happy with that then leave me alone.
When you're big enough for that to be a problem, like in the story, then someone who knows more that you've hired will have a stronger opinion of that.
I can explain a little bit
1- KYC, the bank is a highly regulated entity, regulated by the state, they are a branch of the executive, they enforce banking laws set by the legislative, and can get involved in cases of fraud, money laundering, or other illegal activities. If they see a million dollar transaction, they usually want to know where the money came from, if they don't they would essentially be looking the other way. In general know what your business partner needs, in any walk of business. Let them know that you have a such and such business, that you got a round of funding. Also know what kind of bad actors you want to differentiate yourself from, let them know you are not a drug dealer, you are not laundering money, or running a ponzi scheme, and that the money won't be frozen putting them in trouble.
2) Money is a very complex subject, the fact that you think of money as "something that is stored in a bank" is testament to the fact that banks do a good job, it's an illusion, there's a lot going on behind the scenes that you are unaware of, similar to how there's a lot going on behind the scenes in Google or ChatGPT, which have simple interfaces but complex inner workings.
3) In general, a bank is a vendor, a supplier a business partner, you pay them for services. Maybe in your personal life you don't care and you are used to anonymous transactions because of the low amounts. But in business, these are strategic relationships, you want to get the most out of your money and establish a relationship with your vendor. Loyalty goes a long way, although switching vendors is always possible, it's a tradeoff with consequences that needs to be considered, and not ignored.
> similar to how there's a lot going on behind the scenes in Google or ChatGPT
I would caution against maling this sort of comparison to tech companies. Speaking from personal experience, my vantage point is limited to Denmark, but banking isn't complicated like tech is. In tech the complications are all self inflicted, all serve to make the product. Banking interacts directly with the foundation of society. Most of the complication of banking is therefore not in service of the product, but in service of democracy.
That distinction affects the mentality and the "feel" of the complications a lot.
Borrowing some lexicon from the Zen of python, what you are saying is that tech is complicated but banking is complex.
Regardless, it is still a case of a simple UI and a complex (complicated implies complexity) backend.
Banking works as a store of money and money mover until they decide what you are doing is outside the normal course for their average account holder.
After that you very rapidly get educated on the fact that money within a bank is not your money - it’s the banks money and they are not afraid to more or less tell you that outright.
There is very little recourse once you hit some internal KYC/AML or other “non-desirable” entity flags so it’s best to establish relationship banking prior to ever getting close to those (hidden and secret) thresholds. Even having multiple accounts at different banks isn’t much protection since they seemingly by law or regulation share these databases with each other. You will likely never make it off such a list if you get added to one.
For me at least that’s all private banking or even banking beyond a checking and savings account is. It’s paid insurance for continued access to the financial system.
> After that you very rapidly get educated on the fact that money within a bank is not your money - it’s the banks money and they are not afraid to more or less tell you that outright.
The author's experience says otherwise. He even muses about how it only cost him 30 bucks to transfer 35 M and it was done almost immediately.