A Westpac customer has hit out at the major bank after he faced a grilling when trying to withdraw $25,000 cash from his bank account. The Gold Coast man said he “felt like a criminal” during the questioning and it ended up taking him over half an hour to withdraw his money.

Andrew Fam has been a customer of Westpac for years, but says he is now planning to change banks. The Forex Platinum Trading founder said he was “interrogated” by staff and repeatedly asked why he was withdrawing the cash and what it would be used for.

“They made me feel like I was doing the wrong thing by insinuating that what I was doing, withdrawing large amounts of money, was inappropriate, incorrect, wrong,” Fam told Yahoo Finance.

Australian banks are legally required to collect information, record and report on anyone making a cash transaction of $10,000 or more to regulator AUSTRAC. Customers may be asked to provide personal information, including identification, or the bank may decline the transaction.

Fam said he had run into similar issues in the past when withdrawing $5,000 cash to use for a giveaway for his business and when withdrawing $10,000 to use when travelling overseas.

His personal bank account is with Westpac, while his business bank account is with ANZ, and he said he also faced a grilling when attempting to transfer $40,000 into his business account to help with cash flow.

Fed up, Fam said he decided to withdraw $25,000 cash to “test” what the process was and what questions he would be asked.

Aussie claims he had to ‘beg’ for own money

After requesting the $25,000 withdrawal, Fam said he was taken into a separate room by the bank manager and asked why he wanted to withdraw the cash.

Fam said he initially pushed back at the question, but the bank worker explained they needed to ask this to make sure he wasn’t being pressured or scammed into withdrawing the cash.

After confirming he was willingly withdrawing the cash and planned to use it to go travelling, he said he was questioned further.

“They then asked me questions along the lines of, can you give us specifics in terms of how you’re going to spend your money? So they wanted to know how I was going to spend my money, they wanted to know where I was travelling, what countries I was going to, and why I needed that money in those countries,” Fam told us.