The Sudden Closure of Bank Accounts: What's Behind It?

Banks are closing customer accounts with little explanation due to increasing attention to suspicious-seeming transactions. Financial institutions are obligated to alert regulators and law enforcement through a Suspicious Activity Report if there’s irregular behavior that they cannot easily explain. Banks can close a customer’s account for any reason, at any time, and it’s usually because they’re trying to protect the institution (or the customer) from a potential fraud. Sudden account closures are intensely disruptive, and people subject to them seem to be saying so more often.