Suspected of money laundering?

choccyface2021

I think I’ve made a big mistake.

I’ve always been a saver and held most of my savings (& joint savings with my fiancé) in a Santander ISA but the interest rates were appalling so I opened a credit union account and over the course of a year saved/transferred around £5,000 into it.

At the beginning of March I received my CU dividends for the year and it was 2.25% compared to the 0.02% interest at Santander so I decided to transfer most of my ISA savings and also some NatWest savings into the CU account, I did this by transferring Santander funds to my NatWest account and then onto my CU account from there as I already had it set up as a payee. 

Because of how I managed my finances this was done over three weeks in 4 transactions and now my CU balance is £25,000.

But twice now I’ve been unable to log into my CU account and although I’ve been able to re-set my password on both occasions and can now see my balances it’s made me worried that they suspect my of money laundering as I’ve never had an issue logging in before. 

I felt I needed to explain the transactions so I sent a secure message to explain, I also explained that the savings are for our wedding (postponed 3 times due to covid), our honeymoon, my redundancy fund (from last year, I have a new job now) and savings to go towards my daughter to help her through Uni. 

But they haven’t replied and I know that if they are investigating me they wouldn’t be able to ‘tip me off’ so maybe that’s why?

I have nothing to hide, the money is all traceable and saved over the last 7 years or so, i don’t have paper statements but I’m sure I could get them online, I don’t claim benefits and pay my taxes etc... but I’m worried my account will be frozen, I’ll be investigated and I subsequently won’t be able to pay wedding suppliers when the time comes.

I left £1000 in my ISA as I have instant access whereas the CU can take a day or two to withdraw funds but I need access to much more than that. 

Please can anyone offer any advice or reassurance? Thanks. 

underground99

Some financial institutions are more curious than others about the deposit habits of their depositors and may trigger some sort of internal review if the amounts deposited by an account holder suddenly increase well beyond 'normal' levels.

As a general rule though, if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear. They might ask you where some money came from, and you could tell them, and they would say ok fine. So quite unlikely that you are going to find yourself unable to pay suppliers.

From what you're saying, you've made various transfers from other regulated UK financial institutions where the accounts were in your name, into your CU. Not in itself suspicious. You had some paranoia that your account has been blocked, but then you reset your password and it was fine. So, there doesn't seem to be any issues really.

You sent them some messages and they didn't bother to reply because they probably don't really care or consider your 'case' important enough to warrant a reply. You still have access to your account, and you're trying to tell them things that haven't even asked about. If you can't withdraw funds, send them a complaint that the account facilities aren't working. From what you said, they are working fine but you couldn't access your account until you reset your password and then you could access your account. Sounds like a fuss over nothing.

choccyface2021

Thank you, I very much appreciate your comments. 

MX5huggy

What is the CU’s maximum savings holding? MSE says many have £10 or £15k limit.

choccyface2021

MX5huggy said:

What is the CU’s maximum savings holding? MSE says many have £10 or £15k limit.

Thank you for your comment, I checked the limit before I joined and it’s the same as the banks, £85k as it’s a big national CU. 

MrFrugalFever

Nothing from what you’ve described seems in anyway suspicious and the fact that you’ve had a technical problem logging in but was corrected after resetting your password doesn’t mean anything more than just a technical problem.

if you’re asked about ‘source of funds’ or ‘source of wealth’ then you’re able to back it up with evidence from what you’ve said.

i say you’ve got nothing to worry about.

colsten

choccyface2021 said:

MX5huggy said:

What is the CU’s maximum savings holding? MSE says many have £10 or £15k limit.

Thank you for your comment, I checked the limit before I joined and it’s the same as the banks, £85k as it’s a big national CU. 

£85K is the maximum FSCS protection, not the deposit limit. Banks generally will allow you to hold £1m or even £2m, often per account, but Credit Unions have much smaller limits, and much fewer customers. However, they should not be spooked by a £25K deposit from a single individual though it is probably rare. As others have said, if you have nothing to hide, you've got nothing to worry about.

Ash_Pole

I always thought credit unions were quite localised but seems not from this. 

Choccyface2021 can you tell us who this CU is? I'm interested if I can get 2%+ on an 85k deposit.

Thrugelmir

Banks are under a legal responsibility to report large deposits. In doing so protect themselves. Best advice is to inform your bank ahead of the transaction arriving. 

choccyface2021

Ash_Pole said:

I always thought credit unions were quite localised but seems not from this. 

Choccyface2021 can you tell us who this CU is? I'm interested if I can get 2%+ on an 85k deposit.

Certainly, it’s Commsave. 

choccyface2021

Thrugelmir said:

Banks are under a legal responsibility to report large deposits. In doing so protect themselves. Best advice is to inform your bank ahead of the transaction arriving. 

Yes I should have warned them but it never crossed my mind at the time.