The issue that was faced is that banks could rightfully claim that they had no duty to verify identity and/or the legal status of funds they accepted on deposit. This led to all sorts of shenanigans like fraud, money laundering, and outright theft.
the KYC regulations are a compromise between having the government know EVERYTHING about your financial life. With KYC, it's the bank's duty to know at least a few things about you and your money to make it harder to use the financial system to conduct criminal activity.
I know a lot of folks like to believe in the libertarian paradise where no government can ever exercise power over you and each man is a sovereign unto themselves but the truth is that a true libertarian community wouldn't be someplace anyone wants to live.