A 96-year-old woman in Åland has had both her bank card and BankID blocked by Handelsbanken. In order to regain access to BankID, the family has been told she must travel to a bank branch in Stockholm—even though her doctor, according to her son, considers such a journey could put her life at risk.

The case, reported by Dagens Nyheter, again raises the question of how much power Swedish banks have gained over people’s ability to manage both their finances and basic interactions with authorities.

Yvonne De Geer Hancock is 96 years old, a retired journalist and author, and has lived in Åland for five years. She needs a walker to get around and suffers from arthritis in her fingers, making it difficult for her to use a mobile phone on her own.

Therefore, her son Michael Hancock helps her with things like bills and other everyday errands.

The problems started when her bank card suddenly stopped working. When her son contacted Handelsbanken to find out what had happened, customer service first asked what his mother needed 65 euros for.

– I think it’s an invasion of privacy and I received no explanation of the rules behind such a question. If it had been 65,000 euros I’d understand, says Michael Hancock to DN.

BankID Blocked After Call

During contact with the bank, the son explained that he had logged in to his mother’s account using her BankID to try to find out why the card didn’t work.

Handelsbanken then informed him that no one else is allowed to use a customer’s personal BankID.

When the family called the bank together the following day, they discovered that the BankID had also been blocked.

– When we tried to identify ourselves with her BankID, I discovered they had blocked it without notifying us. And they still haven’t explained why, says Hancock.

As a result, according to the son, the 96-year-old woman can no longer access her bank accounts or identify herself digitally for agencies like the Swedish Tax Agency or the Pensions Agency.

She has supposedly been a Handelsbanken customer for at least 60 years.

The family states that the bank’s decision is that a new BankID requires a visit to a bank branch in Stockholm. Since her passport has expired, the possibility of remote identification has also become more difficult.

The son says he has discussed the journey with his mother’s doctor.

– I have already talked to her doctor who says it would be grotesque for her to have to make such a trip, he says.

He has also written about the problem in Nya Åland and highlighted how today’s system can hit especially hard on the elderly and people already in digital exclusion.

The Bank: Must Protect the Customer

Handelsbanken, citing bank secrecy, declines to comment on the specific case.

The bank also tells DN that BankID and other personal security solutions may only be used by the holder.

“If the bank becomes aware that someone other than the holder is using the customer’s BankID or other personal security solutions, we are obligated to act. Any limitations or blocks are undertaken as a security measure to protect the customer and safeguard their assets,” the bank writes.

Handelsbanken also states that a new BankID can sometimes be issued remotely if the customer has a valid ID document.

After repeated contacts, the bank is now said to have promised to send a new bank card and power of attorney forms so the son can help his mother with her banking. The question of how she will regain access to BankID, however, remains unresolved.

Banks Have Gained a Central Role

This is far from the only time issues have been raised about banks’ significant power over people’s access to basic functions in modern society.

BankID started as a practical digital identification for banking, but has over time become virtually the key to Swedish society. It’s used to identify with authorities, healthcare, insurance companies, telecom operators, and a wide range of private companies.

Losing both a bank account and BankID therefore risks much greater consequences than simply losing access to banking.

Samnytt has examined this development for several years.

In April, Samnytt published the extensive report, “Michael was excluded from the banking system – ‘Slow state violation’”, about the entrepreneur Michael Fridebäck who was suddenly shut out of the banking system.

Fridebäck described how his daily life and business were quickly paralyzed when banking services disappeared. The case was part of Samnytt’s reporting series about people who had their accounts and banking services terminated.

In the second part of the investigation, additional people who claimed they had been shut out by banks were interviewed, including a person who, according to Samnytt’s report, had been denied banking services 116 times as well as a former Samnytt employee who lost her account while she was being treated for cancer.

Tens of Thousands of Accounts Terminated

The issue has also caught political attention.

Ahead of the Sweden Democrats’ party congress in 2025, Samnytt wrote about a motion by Kent Ekeroth focusing on the banks’ growing role as “gatekeepers” of society.

The article cited, among other things, data from the Financial Supervisory Authority (Finansinspektionen) showing that the number of forcibly closed bank accounts increased from about 45,000 in 2020 to around 60,000 in 2022.

A large part of the banks’ controls are linked to regulations against money laundering and terrorism financing. At the same time, the criticism has been that customers in some cases feel they receive scant explanations for account closures and have few options to appeal banking decisions.

The motion proposed clearer requirements for banks to give concrete reasons when banking services are terminated, the possibility for independent review, and stronger powers for the Financial Supervisory Authority.

There was also the notion that access to basic banking services and electronic identification in a fully digital society should be considered a fundamental societal function.

“The Banking System Must Be Reformed”

This problem was already raised in 2023 in a Samnytt editorial: “The Banking System Must Be Fundamentally Reformed”.

It was noted that the combination of an increasingly cashless society and banks’ control over bank accounts and BankID gives a few private companies enormous influence over individuals’ ability to participate in society.

The article highlighted several earlier cases where private individuals, businesses, and media actors had their accounts closed.

Samnytt argued that banks should not be able to shut out customers on arbitrary grounds and that the state should guarantee basic payment and identification services for people who otherwise risk being excluded from the system.

The issue has become even more pressing as more and more public and private services require electronic identification.

When a 96-year-old woman in Åland after 60 years as a bank customer now suddenly lacks a functioning bank card and BankID, the problem becomes concrete: a security measure that the bank claims is to protect the customer can at the same time mean that the same customer is, in practice, shut out from large parts of her own economic and digital life.