If you agree to pay back your mortgage by bank statements, it’s up to you to make sure you have a bank account.

Yikes! So the law has ensured that people are put in the unreasonable position of making guarantees they are not in control over.

if you can no longer get a normal bank account (because of financial crimes you’ve committed, you falling into debt repeatedly makes you too risky for the banks, etc.)

It’s much easier than that to be systemically shut out. You just have to be born in the wrong place. Point 2 in this paper. That page lists several situations where a law-abiding consumer is shown the door by banks.

you can get a basic bank account which comes with various restrictions, but will allow you to pay your bills.

EU basic bank accounts do not support cash deposits. So if you earn cash or your bank was at least kind enough to warn you before they close your account and you withdrew cash, that money is trapped as cash & cannot be spent from a basic account.

This avenue should always be open to you, so the “I can’t pay through a bank account” excuse probably doesn’t work.

Depends on your nationality.

Suppose you are a Canadian residing in Netherlands and you buy a house. You sign up for a loan under non-negotiable¹ terms. Say 8 years later Canada makes a treaty with NL saying that Dutch banks must either report all Canadian consumers to Canada or they must very closely watch their Canadian clients (bank’s choice). Both options are a burden on banks, so banks decide it’s not worth the money a few Canadians them to deal with it, so they reject all Canadians unless they open a basic account. But the does not want to serve Canadians with basic accounts because of the extra babysitting burden. So they don’t inform Canadian consumers that the option exists. They simply send them a letter saying they have 1 month to clear out their bank account and leave. Some Canadians will do just that and bring home a pile of cash. Other Canadians will take the time to do a bit of research & discover they can force the bank that’s booting them to open a new “basic” account for them.

Human Rights Breached

It’s a human rights problem (all people must be treated as equals which is even codified in EU law). But it’s being ignored. So rewind 8 years. How would a Canadian have predicted that their human rights would be pushed aside and they would be given the boot by banks?

So the Canadian homeowner is booted by the bank and the mortgage lender says “not my problem; pay me and it better not be cash”. How is that reasonable? It comes down to really fucked up law that overlooks the importance that all debts be payable in cash. Not only is the Canadian victimized by way of the human rights violation of treating them different, but then the creditor kicks them when they are down. The lender is also a bank possibly even one with a vault for handling cash, but they simply do not want the inconvenience of handling a monthly cash payment.

The above hypothetical actually happened - but with USians. USians are at the mercy of banks to accept them. Some banks will verbally say “we don’t take Americans” (they will never put that in writing though because it’s an illegal policy). Some banks have decided to take US clients but with extra reporting (thus still violating their human rights by way of unequal treatment). So some USians will say fuck this I’m done with banks. But what about the mortgage that’s still in play? It’s insanely reckless to impose on the human being side of the contract the ability to predict that disaster. And regardless of that, even if a mortgage borrower could predict it, it’s a human rights problem that it would preempt them from home ownership.

Why is this happening? (A: “crime fighting”)

This raises the question: WTF justifies forcing everyone into this shitty banking system? Crime fighting (they say). So non-criminals are getting probed, kicked around, harassed, & denied service under the “crime fighting” rationale? How fucked up is that that the hunt for criminals is designed to put non-criminals in harms way? The whole point to fighting crime is to protect non-criminals in the first place.

Prediction: Brits or Canadians are next

One of those two countries will be next to follow in the footsteps of the USA, and their citizens will also become toxic citizens to banks.

¹ It’s always non-negotiable terms because no bank will take the burden of altering terms and then have to manage different terms for different clients. You can only negotiate figures.