Bank account holders in Jersey, workers in embassies around the world, bookmakers, MPs’ families and even charities have all found themselves out of favour recently with banks that are racing to comply with tough new rules on money laundering and terror financing.

The move by HSBC to check the residency of holders of accounts in Jersey is just the latest illustration of this so-called de-risking, as banks pull back from services and places they judge could put them in danger of hefty fines.

The issue first came to prominence 18 months ago when Mo Farah joined a campaign over Barclays cutting remittance services to his native Somalia, along with a string of countries in Africa and Asia.

In another recent example Iraj Hashi, an economics professor awarded an MBE for his role in helping to rebuild war-torn Kosovo, found his account closed last year by NatWest, part of bailed-out Royal Bank of Scotland. The bank was accused of simply pulling accounts from individuals who like Hashi are of Iranian origin.

More and more charity chiefs are reporting being refused basic bank services, according to Asheem Singh, director of public policy at the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations (ACEVO). Groups with links to Muslim organisations have been particularly affected.

“It is hugely corrosive for any charity to be unbanked. It is counterproductive: it forces them into extreme situations such as having to operate with cash only. This in particular gives rise to a situation in which fraud is not only possible but probable,” Singh said.

There is no official data on the number of individuals and organisations caught up in the banks’ retrenchment. The World Bank was recently commissioned by the G20 to compile such information, while earlier this month the Financial Action Task Force – the international body which sets standards for combatting money laundering and terrorist financing – acknowledged it was a global phenomenon and said it would try to find ways to ease its impact.

For now much of the evidence is anecdotal and those affected are often mystified as to why.

In a House of Lords debate last year Liberal Democrat Lord Clement-Jones said his son had been unable to access a cash machine while letters to the Racing Post claim HSBC has been closing the accounts of bookmakers. It is thought peers and their families could fall the wrong side of EU rules that single out “politically exposed persons”, while bookies are in banks’ sights because they handle large cash transactions.

A series of swingeing penalties have spurred the banks into action. HSBC was fined £1.2bn in 2012 by the US authorities for allowing Mexican drug barons to launder money through its branches and hit with a deferred prosecution agreement with the US authorities. Last August, Douglas Flint, HSBC’s chairman, warned the risk of further fines was creating an “observable and growing danger of disproportionate risk aversion”. That was before last month’s revelations showing how HSBC’s Swiss banking arm had been helping customers avoid tax after account details were leaked to the Guardian and other publications.

The British Bankers’ Association’s submission to the Treasury select committee of MPs – which has been calling for written evidence on the topic – sets out the impact of the wide range of rules in different jurisdictions. “The very robust stances of some regulators in major financial centres and the level of fines applied to foreign banks by US authorities, in particularl for financial crime compliance failings, have been material to the very careful risk management approach of BBA member banks,” the BBA said.

The Treasury acknowledged there is a problem and Andrea Leadsom, economic secretary to the Treasury, said it was a global trend with global causes. Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, has also highlighted the issue, warning last month of the risk of “financial abandonment”, in which countries or institutions are effectively cut off from the global financial system.

Some solutions have been sought. In the case of Syria, the banking industry worked with the Disaster Emergency Commission last year to get money into the country.

With regards to Somalia, talks started in November 2013 to create “a safe corridor” to facilitate payments to the country. Rushanara Ali, the MP for Bethnal Green who has been campaigning on the topic, told the Treasury committee last month that the scheme was delayed, although this is disputed by the department for international development and World Bank, which are leading the discussions.

A DIFD spokeswoman said: “The UK-Somalia remittance market is complex and we are working with Somali communities here in the UK, regulators and the government of Somalia to ensure our work meets the specific needs on the ground in Somalia.”