Warning: Fineco Bank no longer use unique IBANs for different currencies

john1488786

Just giving a heads-up to Fineco Bank multi-currency account customers, because it appears Fineco Bank has NOT informed any of their customers of this change (I certainly wasn't). 

Basically Fineco no longer use a unique IBAN for each of their supported currencies, they now have a single IBAN and any forex payment received into your Fineco account will automatically be put into the correct 'pot',  assuming the currency is supported and is already in your profile.

To give an example (my own)

IT86GxxxxxxxxxxUSDxxxxxxxxx
was the old unique IBAN for my USD account 

IT02Pxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
is the new universal IBAN showing in my desktop banking if i click on my sort code

As my old Fineco USD IBAN was still saved in my UAE sending bank (own account at Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank) - and to which I've made many payments successfully previously - I made a transfer to the old USD IBAN last week for nearly USD 9000 and unsurprisingly this payment has now disappeared into the Black Hole of Calcutta. I've already asked ADCB to do a MT103 trace and *hopefully* the payment is returned soon rather than having to wait weeks/months. I only found this out when the SWIFT payment didn't arrived into my Fineco Bank the same day (as has been the case previously) and upon logging into Fineco desktop banking, found out that Fineco now use a different universal IBAN for all currencies. When I called up Fineco support to query why I wasn't informed of this IBAN change, they told me they have never used unique IBANs in the past! Yeah right.....

HTH

Marchitiello

I opened the very first post on this forum about Fineco UK as I was invited by an Italian friend via an introductory offer. I have always used the same IBAN for both Euro and USD income payments, cannot recall separate IBAN but I may just not remember it correctly 

john1488786

Marchitiello said:

I opened the very first post on this forum about Fineco UK as I was invited by an Italian friend via an introductory offer. I have always used the same IBAN for both Euro and USD income payments, cannot recall separate IBAN but I may just not remember it correctly 

Fineco have definitely had separate IBANs in the past, though the last 7/8 digits have always been the same on all accounts.

john1488786

I opened my Fineco account in Jan 2018 and these were the correct IBANs at the time which I've always used...until now

GBP
IT37KxxxxxxxxxxGBPxxxxxxxxx

EUR
IT02Pxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

USD
IT86GxxxxxxxxxxUSDxxxxxxxxx

CHF
IT77QxxxxxxxxxxCHFxxxxxxxxx

So basically they're now using the EUR IBAN for ALL currencies but didn't have the courtesy to let customers know of this change.

Daliah

Fineco doesn't have terribly high or consistent customer service standards. They're fine if you don't need their CS, and you might strike it lucky if you do need their help, but more often than not it's a bit of a battle. 

john1488786

Panic over! Funds from UAE bank to Fineco arrived today, minus $50 which I'm guessing is the intermediary bank charge somewhere along the line. So it looks like the old USD IBAN is still working. Pheeeew.......

john1488786

Oh dear, I don't know who's to blame here....

I made another transfer today from my ADCB account in Abu Dhabi to Fineco and the payment was sent in USD to my universal Fineco IBAN beginning IT02.

Good news: the funds arrived the same day
Bad news:  it was EUR funds which arrived, NOT USD. Around EUR 200 short, if the USD amount was converted to EUR using the Fineco forex rate. USD currency is definitely an active currency on my Fineco multi-currency account. 

I called Fineco, they said they definitely do NOT convert foreign (supported) incoming payments into EUR automatically. Which leaves 2 suspects: either the sending bank or a third party intermediary bank. Is it possible for an intermediary bank to convert currency en-route or is that strictly forbidden in SWIFT transfers?

I'm fairly sure ADCB sent the funds in USD because it clearly shows ' INT'L TRNSFR USD xxxx.000' on my ADCB statement - though I have asked their remittance team to confirm this and awaiting their call. I should also add that I paid ADCB AED 105 to cover any third party intermediary bank charges - works out cheaper than being deductted USD 50.00 like they did last month

Had I known this would happen, I would have simply used ADCB to convert AED into GBP (they offer decent forex rates for a bank) and send funds into my Nationwide account in UK directly instead of faffing about with Fineco. Unfortunately Wise/TransferWise charge a small fortune if sending AED > GBP, due to eye watering debit card charges they levy on UAE issued debit cards - though that might be down to the UAE banks penalising such transactions.

john1488786

I should also add, I suppose another option I had was sending the USD funds to my old Fineco dedicated USD IBAN (like I did last time) but I would be taking a huge gamble since they they no longer support this IBAN officially. 

Think it might be time to give up on Fineco....