Love is in the air...

The Humanitarian Forum held an accounting and compliance training for small charities the other week. It was very successful but what caught my attention was the idea of the existence of a “suspense account”. When I found out that it meant money left “up in the air” somewhere, I immediately thought of a song from the 70s, I’m sure you’ve heard it:



It’s a very nice song, talking about love being in the air for everybody. In my opinion, before you leave things suspended in the air, you must know some facts. For example, you should ask yourself: what sort of air will it be? Will it change the climate in any way? Will it impact the environment?

The same thing should happen with the “suspense account”. Due to counter-terrorist measures, banks and bank managers have been granted special powers to refuse transfers because your name might start with the letter S, Z or V or you might be from a country starting with the letter A. I believe that such a power being given to individuals will deprive communities in the long term. It will destroy communities, fragment society and create more terror, radicalism and extremism and even lead to extinction.

Nobody knows how many bank transfers have been stopped, frozen and suspended. The deprived are even more deprived as they’re left up in the air. Love might be in the air, as the song claims, but money definitely isn’t. I wish that wasn’t the case and that the process would be more transparent and accountable.

For example, what happens to the money in the suspense account? Does it just sit there for years and years, gaining interest? Who stands to benefit from that interest?

Because these questions are unpleasant and cannot be answered in all honesty, I leave you with a pleasant image: