Scandal in a well-known Polish bank. They blocked the account and the funds due to the fact that they didn't like the document

mBank again faced controversy after blocking funds on 1 of its clients' accounts. This time the communicative concerns Olga, who is simply a stewardess and actively runs her social channels, including a popular YouTube channel called “The Life of Stewardessy.” Thanks to her online activity, she became a hero of another unfortunate situation related to mBank.

Ms. Olga was a mBank client for over 10 years, and she started an account as a teenager. However, despite long - word loyalty, there was an unexpected situation that complicated her life. The problems began erstwhile the steward could not make a payment at a restaurant in Poland, even though she had adequate funds in her account. After logging into mBank's online banking, she was terrified to discover that her funds had been blocked. She could not make transfers or retreat cash, and many another services were unavailable.

Ms Olga explained that she had been receiving monity from mBank for respective months to update her individual data in the system, especially individual ID data. Unfortunately, her identity card expired in 2022, and as a individual working abroad, she primarily utilized her passport. The surprise of the stewardess turned out that mBank did not accept the passport as an crucial identity document.

The client visited the mBank branch, where she learned that she could only regain access to her funds after updating her identity card or obtaining a fresh identity card. Although the passport is recognised in banks worldwide and contains all the essential data, mBank did not consider it an acceptable document.

Unfortunately, Mrs Olga is not a debtor, she has no late payment, and regularly receives receipts as a stewardess. Still, the bank blocked her account. As the only option, the bank offered to close the account and transfer the funds to another bank, but this effort failed due to an incorrect account number message to transfer the funds. Mrs. Olga made a complaint, but the bank inactive hasn't given her any help. Worse still, she was cut off from the bank's hotline, obstructing her intervention in this case. The full situation has been going on for a period and it does not supply a solution.

In the movie published on the Stewardess Life channel, Mrs Olga besides made comments available to another mBank clients who besides experienced akin problems and lost access to their resources.

All this experience has made Mrs Olga realize that having physical cash could be the safest option, and if she had no accounts at another banks, she could stay completely destitute. This underlines the importance of the flexibility of banks vis-à-vis different types of identity documents, especially for clients who work or are abroad.

Position of mBank on the designation of passports

Od September 1 Polish passport is treated by us on an equal basis with ID and mID (mcietel document). Information about which identity papers we accept is published on: https://www.mbank.pl/individual/uslugi/uslugi/identity/personal data/ It is worth knowing that passport and mID should be registered in the facility of the bank. The identity card can be added to the application or transaction.

Why different approaches to ID and passport?

In the event of proof, the bank may confirm its authenticity in the registry of individual Evidence. An analogous database is not available for passports, making it hard to establish the authenticity or position (e.g. cancellation) of specified a document. For the bank, this means the hazard of failing to fulfil the obligations set out in the Act of 1 March 2018 on the prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing.. In addition, according to Article 37 of that Act, the bank is required to take into account information from a reliable and independent source.

For akin reasons, we ask customers to registry current data related to identity documents. We inform about the request to update the data weeks before the temporary blocking of the account. We do this so far in advance that customers don't gotta face difficulties.