The updated requirement is:
A 2 X photo ID (passport and national ID card copy)
B - recent electrical bill / property tax / telephone (no other type accepted)
C - copy of a bank statement / bank account in your name - should be the same account from which you receive / send funds
D - occupation detail and source of income explained on the form
This is completely unacceptable. Looks like I'll be buying BTC or LTC and transferring out of Bitfinex soon, then.
I only have 1 ID (seriously) since I haven't bothered to renew my passport after it expired, so I can't do A.
It's 2014 not 1994 so my bank doesn't send me paper statements at all so I can't do C.
Also, D seems to sort under "none of their business", there is no reason they need to know what other income I have for me to withdraw what I've made from trading and lending at Bitfinex.
Bitfinex is with that essentially saying that they've now closed fiat withdraws.
Guess I'll have to change my signature too and update it to say "screwed exchange that denies fiat withdraws to most people".
Or maybe I'll decide to apply for a passport and look for an outdated bank that operates like it's the 1980s but I doubt that. It seems like a bit much just to use an exchange who've now completely submitted to the fascist world order.
Let me point out a few simple concepts here:
1) We don't observe AML/KYC rules because we like to give you a hard time, we do it because we don't want to be shut down by local authorities and have all your money confiscated ( Liberty Reserve anyone?)
2) We just require extra documents to accounts that show abnormal patterns of withdrawals or any strange behavior.
3) Less than one month ago MtGox exploded and this drew massive attention to every trading platform. Bitfinex is now the second platform in the world in the BTC/USD pair, so it's perfectly normal for us to try to be scrupulous in our procedures.
4) If you have no passport, a photo ID and a driving license will do.
5) We accept bank statements in electronic format (PDF)
6) The same people complaining now were also complaining back in june 2013 when we pulled out of MtGox.
They called me paranoid, chicken, you name it. All this people didn't show up when Gox collapsed to just say thank you. Not one word, nothing, zero.
Time will tell who's is right between who is trying to comply with the rules and who is just ranting about a world that doesn't exist yet.
Platforms are centralized entities and must comply with the rules.
Anybody not getting this should seek for a better place to trade (and eventually end up losing all of his coins).
Yes, I wrote it again. And the more I write it the more I mean it.
Have a good day
Giancarlo
Bitfinex Team