Costa Rica’s Banco Nacional (National Bank) has notified several of its customers who have been identified by the bank as UBER drivers by the deposits received in their accounts that they cannot continue to receive funds originating from this activity and informs them of the possibility of closing down their accounts if they disregard the notification.

After a customer of this bank affected by the situation made the matter public, the bank explained its position through a post in their sites and social media accounts, where they explain that because of the illegality of the UBER service in the country the financial entity cannot accept deposits originating from this activity.

“Due to the fact that the UBER activity has been declared by several instances as illegal, the bank proceeds with the due process, responsibly communicating with the clients to inform them they must not receive deposits originating from this activity, otherwise we would have to break our commercial relationship”, explains the press release, which continues, “Banco Nacional is not keeping statistics, we handle it on a case by case basis when the activity is detected, it is an individual process… It is important to clarify that Banco Nacional doesn’t have a process against UBER drivers, but it is being respectful of the law and in compliance with Law 8204 we must ensure that funds received by our account holders originate from legal activities”.

The bank also clarifies they cannot block the platform used by UBER to make the deposits to its affiliates and the bank can ONLY link the deposits to UBER if the detail of the transfer indicates the origin of the same.

The bank is notifying clients accordingly and giving them a 10 day term to comply, if after this term the account holder continues to receive funds from UBER the bank will proceed with the closure of the account; in this case, the balance in the account is given to its owner in a cashier’s check.