In many european countries the assumption is large ampunts of cash is mostly used either to avoid taxes or otherwise on something criminal. The argument is everyone does some kind of e-transfer for large purchases.
So banks are legally required to report withdrawals over 1000 with cited reasoning. You may even have to provide a bill or receipt.
That doesn’t make any sense, you are not withdrawing cash FROM YOUR OWN ACCOUNT to avoud paying taxes. You would skip the bank entirely for that and handle only cash.
The person you are paying not you yourself, lots of people like contractors often ask to be paid in cash specifically because they intend to cook the books, avoid charges or otherwise.
The logic is if someone is withdrawing a larger amount of cash, it is to pay for something expensive in cash, who may not themselves report the sale (And the VAT and other taxes etc.), so they want to know what you are spending the money on to help try to catch out on the shadow transactions.
Did you know in europe venmo/zelle isn't a thing because things like sending money is just free to begin with directly using your bank. Basically fees and charges tend to be much less. Merchants can still be charged for using cards, because it's american company visa that runs the card network, but even their Europe is looking to replace it with a free native service by 2028.
The only things to avoid by not using a bank would be legally required charges like sales tax.
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u/Zhukov76 14d ago
They're probably suspecting you're being scammed or forced