Barclays Business Banking telling me I can't be an IT consultant

[NotAllThere]

Did they not have "cleaner" as an option?

No, they seem to have skipped the service industry side completely.

[Martin at NixonWilliams]

I'm being harrassed by bar lays business banking, letters (which I hadn't opened) and now repeated phone calls.

I'd been fobbing them off thinking it was just a sales pitch but they told me today that they are about to send a letter stating that unless I respond they will ask me to move my account elsewhere.

So I said to fire away with questions and the first was that they needed to know more about what I did. They had been told that IT consultant is no longer acceptable. They needed to know which sectors I work in. I've worked in finance for years but don't like the idea of being labelled with that restriction. My skills cross sectors, so I'm a consultant. And what business is it if theirs anyway. So they asked what sectors I was in, I just repeated the list they suggested. The. They asked if I worked in the gambling industry, "because it is high risk".

Wtf? I'm pretty sure it is Barclays but I'm taken back that I would have to provide this (they claimed regulatory) and that even if I did code for a gambling company, why would that make me or my company higher risk.

Anyone else had this from Barclays or any other bank?

Anyone recommend a bank to go to that is to going to waste my time with types phone calls and letters?

This is becoming more and more of a problem with nearly all of the banks.

They ask who you are working for, what the main activities are, which countries you are working in etc. in order to identify what they consider high risk areas.

I met with Cater Allen recently and two of the examples they gave were people working in certain countries and for military organisations.

I'm still not entirely sure why it is up to the bank to do this but it is becoming a bit of a problem.

I hope this helps.

Martin