Since the introduction of the Immigration Act 2014, banks and building societies have been prohibited from opening current accounts for individuals who are in the UK illegally. The Immigration Act 2016 goes one step further, with the introduction of multiple measures to prevent illegal migrants from continuing to operate existing current accounts. The Act gives the important responsibility of identifying these migrants to banks and building societies, which must, upon establishing that a client is an illegal migrant, contact the Home Office which will take further action.
These developments have been introduced with the intention of making it harder to live a settled life unlawfully in the UK and to incentivise voluntary departure from the UK.