Originally Posted by notime

Anti-terrorism, anti-money laundering, tax evasion and other reasons only known to governments. Same reason the government demand backdoors in skype and other software/communications or ask ISP's to save all data from surfers. All financial institutions need to comply with "know your customer". EU just gave all wire data on requested data to the US also. Tax treaties between governments are at a high point and they hunt for any anonymous credit/debit card holders now to see how the money flow works.