International wire transfer using intermediary bank - missing money and a question about MT-103

Ballard

It's been a few years since I have had anything to do with MT103 type payments in my course of work so I no longer have the knowledge to be specific but the contents of the fields would be different depending on whether it was sent to MIDLGB22 or HSBC, New York. If they're all the same then that could be the source of the issue.

Galno

Thanks for your guidance so far! Just to provide an update:

Wells Fargo acknowledged that the payment was rejected and the funds should have been returned, but that details were missing to enable this to happen. It still seems like e-trade want me to follow up with my bank to get them to correct the details to enable to return of the rejected funds. However, it wasn't my bank that rejected them, I believe is was HSBC acting as the intemediatry. Nationwide state they can't do anything without the exact amount in GBP (which of course is not possible as the conversion was never done). E-trade stated they can't do much else as the funds weren't returned to them as when they were rejected (I assume by HSBC) they missed out the details to return them to E-Trade...

In summary: They now acknowledge the wire was rejected, but the funds are still stuck with the intemediatry who I can't contact, and apparently neither side can contact to correct the issue either. Does anybody know what happens in situations like this? Do HSBC just keep hold of it indefinitely?

Ballard

I’m not sure why the bank who currently hold the funds can’t return them to the originating bank. They will have all of the required information on the Swift messages. It shouldn’t be up to you to chase any banks.

You have informed the remitter that you haven’t received the money and it has been acknowledged that this is the case. The remitter now needs their bank to do the donkey work to get the funds back and pay you properly. It can be a pain for them but they charge to make the payment so need to do some work to put it right.

You’ll just have to make yourself a nuisance with E-trade as they need to be making themselves a nuisance with their bank. They can’t simply wash their hands of this. Perhaps escalate your complaint with someone higher up the chain. 

Galno

Just to close this off - I’m not quite sure exactly what made it happen, but the money was finally returned to my E*Trade account! Thanks for all of the answers!