Overseas Bank Transfer withheld due to incorrect name

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pensure1988
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Overseas Bank Transfer withheld due to incorrect name

Postby pensure1988 » Thu Sep 05, 2019 6:56 pm

I was expecting Euros in my Spanish Bank from overseas on Tuesday 3rd Sept 2019, should have been Monday. It was a Holiday in USA. I checked my Account on Tuesday, Wednesday and today before 09:30am. The Funds were not there yet.
I had to make a special trip to La Caixa Bank in Estepona. On enquiring about these funds was told they were lying in a Suspense Account. The Reason being that the name on Overseas Transfer did not match entirely up with the name on my Cheque Account with La Caixa. These fund were eventually released to me today. Some Bills did not get paid due this procedure by my Bank.
The Consultant in the Bank told me that the Money Laundering Laws had been changed in 2015 but was only enforced from 1st July 2019. Has anyone on this Forum experienced this kind of problem as well as me.

Many Thanks

David

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costakid
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Re: Overseas Bank Transfer withheld due to incorrect name

Postby costakid » Thu Sep 05, 2019 7:28 pm

I had a transfer held up coming in from Germany to the UK. The money went from Germany to a holding bank in the UK who did the relevant checks and released the funds to my bank 48 hours later. The holding bank was Santander who neither my client or me bank with.

Paddy Pumpkin
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Re: Overseas Bank Transfer withheld due to incorrect name

Postby Paddy Pumpkin » Sat Sep 07, 2019 12:46 pm

Basically the anti money laundering rules give the banks free reign to hold your funds until they are satisfied all is in order. They are all now scared **** so are super cautious. I have held funds held several times and had various requests for documents. The worst being bank statements from 7 years ago showing my last salary as an employee ( I am self employed now). I could not supply them so instead gave them my tax return from that year, which was acceptable. Google it and you will find a situation in Switzerland where funds were retained for 4 years. In short you can take the bank to court but it takes years so they have you over a barrel to show them the documents they want...nothing you can do. I sympathise with the banks given the huge fines they have received for money laundering and I think these delays are a price we have to pay to stop financial crimes. Where I do have a problem is when your funds come from one EU bank to another...there should be some way that the first bank can issue a cert to say these funds have already been checked...I have had situation where funds were held twice on one journey as both banks wanted to check it!

Btw...were the funds coming from USA?

Paddy Pumpkin
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Re: Overseas Bank Transfer withheld due to incorrect name

Postby Paddy Pumpkin » Sat Sep 07, 2019 4:39 pm

pensure1988 wrote:I was expecting Euros in my Spanish Bank from overseas on Tuesday 3rd Sept 2019, should have been Monday. It was a Holiday in USA. I checked my Account on Tuesday, Wednesday and today before 09:30am. The Funds were not there yet.
I had to make a special trip to La Caixa Bank in Estepona. On enquiring about these funds was told they were lying in a Suspense Account. The Reason being that the name on Overseas Transfer did not match entirely up with the name on my Cheque Account with La Caixa. These fund were eventually released to me today. Some Bills did not get paid due this procedure by my Bank.
The Consultant in the Bank told me that the Money Laundering Laws had been changed in 2015 but was only enforced from 1st July 2019. Has anyone on this Forum experienced this kind of problem as well as me.

Many Thanks

David
Basically the anti money laundering rules give the banks free reign to hold your funds until they are satisfied all is in order. They are all now scared **** so are super cautious. I have held funds held several times and had various requests for documents. The worst being bank statements from 7 years ago showing my last salary as an employee ( I am self employed now). I could not supply them so instead gave them my tax return from that year, which was acceptable. Google it and you will find a situation in Switzerland where funds were retained for 4 years. In short you can take the bank to court but it takes years so they have you over a barrel to show them the documents they want...nothing you can do. I sympathise with the banks given the huge fines they have received for money laundering and I think these delays are a price we have to pay to stop financial crimes. Where I do have a problem is when your funds come from one EU bank to another...there should be some way that the first bank can issue a cert to say these funds have already been checked...I have had situation where funds were held twice on one journey as both banks wanted to check it!

Btw...were the funds coming from USA?

Paddy Pumpkin
Resident
Posts: 895
Joined: Mon May 01, 2017 12:06 pm
Location: Madrid

Re: Overseas Bank Transfer withheld due to incorrect name

Postby Paddy Pumpkin » Sat Sep 07, 2019 4:46 pm

costakid wrote:I had a transfer held up coming in from Germany to the UK. The money went from Germany to a holding bank in the UK who did the relevant checks and released the funds to my bank 48 hours later. The holding bank was Santander who neither my client or me bank with.

Then Santander bank in the UK who held the funds will be the correspondent bank for either the sender or receiver of the funds. It is standard practice when sending a Swift transfer and can be used for other types of transfers depending on whether the sending or receiving bank is part of the clearing system in their respective surrencies.

You can avoid this delay by exchange the EUR to GBP yourself and having the GBP held in a UK bank account.....or if it was all EURO then by holding the receiving account in a EUR zone country rather than UK. Then it will be a SEPA transfer and it will be quicker


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