Help with SWIFT international payment please

stevebuk22

Hi all,
I am trying to receive a payment from the Bank of Ireland to my Starling account and it has become a nightmare. Basically both banks tell me the issue is with the other. The issue is that the transfer has been paid through an intermediary bank, Natwest. They asked the BOI some questions on the transfer we answered. The money has still not arrived and the BOI tell me that the have completed the transfer and have issued me an MT103 and told me to get Starling to contact the intermediary to apply the funds to my account and nothing more they can do at their end other than recall it. They did this before and resent with same issue. So I have the MT103, have passed to Starling who tell me it is not with them as it is with the intermediary. I asked them to contact the intermediary, bu they told me they cannot and I need to speak to BOI. BOI says it is for the recipients back to contact the intermediary.... Does anyone know who is right or have any other advice? The transfer is in £ Sterling if that helps. 
Thanks,
Steve

HobgoblinBT

See if you can decipher the MT103 using the “key” from the Wikipedia site.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MT103  When I worked in banking I used to do this to try and trace where payments went wrong before contacting the bank’s payments department to resolve the query.   Check to see that your account number and name (beneficiary) details are quoted correctly and if the swift or head office bank sort code is quoted correctly.  If the data is wrong, the responsibility is on the remitting bank to chase the payment.

Hope this helps.

stevebuk22

Thanks, it is definitely correct. My question is can the beneficiary bank contact the intermediary, Nat West to get a reason for the delay / or a status update? BOI say they can, but Starling say it is not something they can help with and refer me back to the remitting bank! 

I notice the charges are set as shared. Could this be the delay? They want paying before the payment is made maybe?

Ballard

The remitting bank are the ones who should be chasing this. The beneficiary bank won’t be able to do anything. The remitting bank should open a query with whoever they sent the MT103 (it could be their intermediary or the beneficiary bank) to advise them that the beneficiary is claiming non-receipt. This is standard practice.

SHA in the charges field shouldn’t make any difference. From memory this is required for SEPA payments so far from uncommon.