No, there is no rule barring people from making bank transactions over 5 km from their home

By: Rajeswari Parasa
June 16 2023

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Context

A 40-second video clip is circulating on Facebook where a woman claims, “If you have money in your bank account and the new rule is you’re not allowed to transact further than 5km from your home. Your card won't work more than five kilometers from your home. If they don't want you to buy pizza, you can't buy pizza with money in your bank account or card. It is complete control, and it solves taxation without representation problems because if they want more taxes, they just come take it out of your account. So, when the world economic forum said it’s 2030, you have no assets, and you are happy. What I hear is in 2030, we took all of your assets and your mind controlled. Okay.”

A user posted the video on Facebook with the caption, “Seriously. This is the long term plan and you won’t be able to get out of it. They want us totally cashless. You can already see it going on with all the card tapping and many stores saying card only. Don’t say you didn’t see it coming because I’ve posted all the facts many times! No cash will give them total control.” This post has garnered around 1,500 views.

However, this claim is false.

In Fact

A quick search showed us that the woman in the video is Catherine Austin Fitts, President of Solari Inc. The clip is from a longer video of her full speech called “Useful steps for navigating the Financial Reset,” according to the screen behind her. The original video is 22 minutes long. The Financial Reset is a conspiracy theory born from the “Great Reset” conspiracy theory.

In the video, Austin Fitts plays a short video of Augustin Carstens, former Governor of the Bank of Mexico and former Bank of International Settlements member. The video was part of a panel discussion held in 2020, where the advent of digital currencies and their implications for the future of cross-border payments was discussed.

We looked for Carstens's full speech to check if he mentioned limiting bank transactions. We found a 59-minute panel discussion on the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) website dated October 19, 2020, where Carstens was one of the speakers at a talk titled “Cross-Border Payments - A Vision for the Future.” In the video, Carstens does not mention any restrictions of a 5-kilometer radius from people’s homes. Instead, he speaks about CBDCs (Central Band Digital Currency) and how difficult it is to track financial transactions. He says, “Let me start by establishing certain facts; first of all, CBDC will always be a national decision; it will be a sovereign decision.”

Austin Fitts has cited Carstens's speech to make a false narrative where banks restrict transactions over 5 kilometers from a person's home. Social media users have edited and shared this statement without context.

Logically contacted the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) for their response on this claim. Bettina Eberhard from the bank’s media center said, “We reviewed the video of the IMF panel and confirm that Mr. Carstens never proposed or mentioned a restriction on bank transactions outside 5 kilometers radius of their homes. Indeed, we have never heard this suggestion before today, and it did not emanate from the BIS. The BIS is an international institution with a mission to support economic and financial stability. It does not advocate for the abolition of cash.”

We have also contacted the International Monetary Funds (IMF) and the World Economic Forum (WEF) for their response via e-mail. We are awaiting their replies.

Social media platforms are flooded with conspiracy theories like the Great Reset and New World Order. According to these conspiracy theories, a group of purported elites comprising some ultra-rich businessmen, politicians, and bankers have hatched a malicious plot to take over the global economy, control people’s lives by taking away their freedom and enslaving the global populace. These conspiracy theories that have been debunked numerous times by Logically Facts and other organizations have found new narratives over time. The financial reset and “15-minute city” narratives are the most recent among them. 

The Verdict

A hypothetical statement made during a 2022 speech has gone viral with a misleading claim that online or banking transactions will be restricted to a 5-kilometer radius from people’s homes. There is no such rule. These claims have no basis and are similar to the narrative propagated in the Great Reset conspiracy theory context. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.