International transfer from USA

sdewar

I'm new to the forum and would love some advice. We recently had a money transfer completed from the US to the UK. I passed on our complete wire details to the bank in the US. Our wire details include a SWIFT intermediary bank. The bank in the US did not use our complete details and failed to include our beneficiary bank as the final destination. They only used the SWIFT intermediary bank code and our IBAN number. The money was sent over a month ago. There's no sign of it. The bank in the US has issued a recall of funds and has sent messages to the intermediary bank on a daily basis. They've had no response to any messages. I'm not sure what to do. I've tried contacting the intermediary bank myself but they tell me to contact the initiating bank? Any advice is appreciated. Thank you.

jonesMUFCforever

Your only recourse is from to the bank that sent it.
Was it from one of your own accounts there or from a third party such as a company or attorney?

US banks do not use IBAN's the Swift and BIC code should have been sufficient for the monies to arrive in your UK bank.

sdewar

Thanks for the reply. The money was sent from a bank account held by a title company we used when selling a plot of land. However, their bank use a third party (forex type) company for international transfers. The money did not bounce back to them. So, it must still be with the intermediary bank in the UK?

Our IBAN was used in the wire as I've been given a copy of the wire message. However the BIC code to our bank was not used.

JuicyJesus

Jones is incorrect on one point, US banks do not have IBANs for their own accounts but they should certainly instruct payments elsewhere with them if applicable.

Your recourse is with this title company. You have not been paid. They need to go to their bank and initiate a trace on the payment. Ask them to add interest for the time you've been without this money.

sdewar

Thanks for the reply. The trace was initiated 3 weeks ago but the intermediary bank will not/has not responded to any messages that have been sent regarding trace or requests for updates.

eDicky

Who is the intermediary bank, is it in the US or UK?

If, as you seem to say, the US bank uses a forex broker to send an international payment, it would probably arrive in your UK account as a domestic transfer (FP or BACS) from their own UK account. So there would be no intermediary bank involved, and it was a mistake to mention them and their SWIFT code when supplying your bank details.

Perhaps you were not aware of the US bank's transfer method (which seems unusual for a bank to use), and your own bank gave you the details needed for receiving USD?

It looks most likely that the intermediary bank has your funds, but if you identify all the parties involved it might be clearer.

xylophone

You sold some land to X Inc, a "title company".

You instructed X Inc to make to payment to the intermediary bank?

X Inc instructed its bank to make the payment and the bank did so through a "forex company"?

The intermediary bank is/is not a UK bank?

You further instructed the intermediary bank to transfer the money to an account in your name in the UK?





The intermediary bank denies having received the payment?

sdewar

Thanks for the reply. The intermediary bank is HSBC. HSBC is the required intermediary bank for Nationwide to accept international wire transfers. The company that sent the money has issued a recall of funds and has sent daily requests for updates. However, HSBC's wire department have not responded at all. The original wire was sent using HSBC's SWIFT code and our Nationwide IBAN number but Nationwides BIC code was not used. (Even though we provided it).

JuicyJesus

HSBC are therefore acting as Nationwide's agent and you should contact Nationwide and advise that their intermediary is holding up your funds.

However part of the problem is that the payment, as you say, has been instructed incorrectly. It should have been sent with Nationwide's BIC as the destination bank with HSBC as the intermediary. This, doubtless, will have caused the hold-up. Calling Nationwide will hopefully get matters expedited (don't bother calling HSBC) but in my view the sender of the payment bears responsibility for the delay.

eDicky

JuicyJesus wrote: »

It should have been sent with Nationwide's BIC as the destination bank with HSBC as the intermediary. This, doubtless, will have caused the hold-up.

This is far from certain, the Nationwide BIC may or may not be relevant. There's still a lack of clarity about how the transfer was made, the various references to 'wire', 'forex type company' used by either the 'title company' or the US bank, and intermediary bank (presumably HSBC UK, not HSBC US) - all these things don't correspond.

As said, the funds are probably with the intermediary bank, but getting therm to find it will need clarity about exactly how it was sent and who is the party with responsibility to put pressure on them to trace it. Also, identifying the exact cause of the mishap will help.

Who actioned the transfer?
What details were requested from you for the transfer and by whom?
Who is the 'forex type company'?
List the entries (without numbers) on your copy of the wire message, the title of the message and who it is issued by.

xylophone

Then the sequence of events was

"Title company" (X Inc) bought land from sdewar and asked him to provide details of where payment was to be sent.

Sdewar gave details of his Nationwide account/Nationwide's HSBC (the "intermediary bank") account.

X Inc's bank sent the funds to HSBC/Nationwide via a forex service.

The funds have not arrived with Nationwide.

It is up to X Inc's bank to contact the forex service to determine exactly where and when the funds were sent?

Once the funds are located it should be possible for them to be transmitted to sdewar?