Because the government said so. Why did the government say so -- because the bank is the only place that can see your transactions and has a profile on you and has a dedicated person to call you and ask about that cash withdrawal on the Turkish side of the Syrian border or regular cash deposits of 100k each week in addition to your cop salary.

Alternatively you can just not do anything with money laundering and all that or let the government do the monitoring itself.

There is a difference between caring about reducing legal risk and caring about money laundering.

HSBC determined its retail banking operations in NA were not worth it any longer due to the liability they faced after their high-profile money laundering scandal [0].

[0] https://www.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/2013/investing-n...

Because look at what happens when the government thinks you don't care enough about money laundering. TD Bank recently got hit with a $3 billion fine.

> More than 90% of transactions went unmonitored between January 2018 to April 2024, which “enabled three money laundering networks to collectively transfer more than $670 million through TD Bank accounts,” according to a legal filing.

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/10/investing/td-bank-settlem...

I think you can easily answer that question yourself by doing a simple search.

It's a long-complicated story but it essentially boils down to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_Secrecy_Act

If they're not seen as doing enough, they can be fined by regulators.