Did banks lose my money?

Elis83

Back in October I attempted to do an international transfer from my UK Natwest account to my own bank account I have abroad in Morocco, for 1000 GBP. The money never reached the Moroccan account. The Moroccan bank says they rejected the transaction. Natwest doesn't have the money anymore. Initially, Barkleys, who was used as intermediary bank, said the money was with the Moroccan bank. I have been on the phone so many times with Natwest and the Moroccan bank and sounds like the money is stuck with Bakleys, who is now not answering to Natwest. Today Natwest requested again an urgent response from Barkleys. So...it's been 2 months and I still don't have my money in my accounts. Natwest reassures me that eventually (!?) I will get it back. I find this outrageous...I could have invested the money, used the money etc. plus my moroccan account is in red. Can banks do this?  In the meantime...I still urgently need the money in the Moroccan account, but I am now very scared of attempting to send money again, until I get my initial 1000 pounds back. I have done a test and sent 10pounds with Wise, and it seems like all went well. so my plan is that as soon as I get my 1000 back, I will send it using Wise. If anyone has any advice it would be greatly appreciated!!

eskbanker

International transfers can take quite a while to untangle when intermediaries are involved, so as NatWest says you'll get your money back eventually (keep pursuing them as the sending bank rather than the others) but if you have an urgent need for the money at the other end then using a specialist broker such as Wise probably is, er, wise....

Why did the Moroccan bank reject the transaction?

Penguin_

Once in work our bank 'lost' an international transfer & it took 5 months to sort out.

Elis83

thank you for your answers! the Moroccan bank said they rejected the transaction for some technical issue that they are having with Natwest and other banks as well. They said the money has been transferred back to Natwest due to a technical problem and then they sent me a reference of the transaction to send to Natwest. When Natwest asked me to ask them to send this reference directly to them they answered that the money has not gone through the ATTIJARIWAFA BANK account to be send back to Natwest, the funds didn’t come out from Natwest at all and that this is what is explained in the reference, which says "WE CONSIDER YOUR MT103 AS NULL AND VOID AS NO COVER RECEIVED". So I dont' know, the whole thing is unclear to me!

nyermen

"WE CONSIDER YOUR MT103 AS NULL AND VOID AS NO COVER RECEIVED".
Is most likely just referring to no corresponding MT202COV message, indeed a technical error but in any case not your problem.

The rejected payment is likely back with Barclays (or natwest?) sitting in a suspense account until someone looks into their payment records / hub to see the returned payment (they're often handled manually especially with swift).

Follow espbankers guidance, in keeping on it, but it could take a little time.  I also wonder if there's any AML flags involved that they won't be telling you about (the french african banks do have an extra eye kept on them by the FCA...)

Elis83

thank you Nyermen - I have been sending money to that account for like 10 years, but I used to have a standing order, which (big mistake!) I had decided to temporarily suspend. Then it seems that now they would charge me a lot (30 pounds each time?!) to have an international standing order, which wasn't the case when I originally set it up. Anyway all this to say it would be strange they have AML concerns after all this time, but who knows?!

What frustrates me is that now my money is sitting with a bank that is not even my bank. They're keeping my money for so long. Surely if I owed money to the bank they wouldn't hesitate to charge me extra for delays. It seems there's no accountability in all this.

Thanks everyone for all the input and advice, really appreciated!

They told me to call back on Friday, so I will keep on it! For sure...this experience doesn't make me want to ever ever try an international transfer via a bank again!

Thrugelmir

Elis83 said:

What frustrates me is that now my money is sitting with a bank that is not even my bank. They're keeping my money for so long. Surely if I owed money to the bank they wouldn't hesitate to charge me extra for delays. It seems there's no accountability in all this.

Banks are only ever going to allocate a certain level of resource to deal with issues which aren't of their own making. As it costs them money.  Being a manual process it will be a question of waiting until the transaction hits the top of the queue to be dealt with. Many transactions end up in suspense accounts every day.