SWIFT payment gone missing

flo22

Can you name both banks are A and B?  I'm wondering if one of them is not set up for Faster Payments

born_again

gt94sss2 said:

Band7 said:

Question to banking experts who can help with a payment from UK bank A to UK bank B that has gone missing. Which bank is responsible for locating the money?

Some details about the transaction:

• high 3-figure sum which was meant to arrive in bank B on February 6 2023 has still not arrived in bank B

Should this not just have been a standard faster payment in which case, IBAN and CHAPS should be irrelevant?

Neither would a payment of under £1000 have been unusual.

Exactly.
Which is why naming the banks will help no end.

HobgoblinBT

 As I recall from my banking career, £25 was a common fee charged by a bank acting as an agent sending/returning/resolving a payment.  Am I right in guessing that one or both of Bank A and Bank B are non High Street banks whose clearing go through another bank?

Band7

flo22 said:

Can you name both banks are A and B?  I'm wondering if one of them is not set up for Faster Payments

HobgoblinBT said:

 As I recall from my banking career, £25 was a common fee charged by a bank acting as an agent sending/returning/resolving a payment.  Am I right in guessing that one or both of Bank A and Bank B are non High Street banks whose clearing go through another bank?

I will name them later. It is correct to say that one of them isn't a High Street Bank, but the other one very much is, and both operate under FCA/PRA licence. I think it might be fair to say that the payment wasn't processed as a Faster Payment but as a SWIFT payment, so the title of my thread is wrong and I should correct it. Which by itself doesn't explain why the payment has failed, as over a dozen of previous payments of exactly the same type did not fail over the last 3 years.

At the moment, much to my surprise and against my original thoughts, it all points to the High Street one (bank B ) being the root of the problem. They are so far not admitting liability, but they have totally failed to explain why they sent me an SMS to say a payment (of exactly the amount of the missing money, down to the actual pence) had been received for my current account with them but then never credited that payment to my account. They have also failed to explain why they never notified me that they then decided to reject that very payment and why they returned all bar £25 to where it came from. 

So the bottom line right now is that I am short of £25 because one bank or another has messed me about. It might not be a lot of money in the grander scheme of things but I will not rest until I have my £25 back, plus compensation for the massive inconvenience caused by one or the other, or both, banks. 

I have already said I will close my account at bank A, and I will do so in due course, and will not use it again in the meantime. This will be easy to do as I only use them once or twice a month, I don't have any SOs or DDs with them, and I have viable alternatives for the transactions I currently process through them. I am also now very tempted to close my accounts with bank B, though this will be a lot more difficult as it is used far more extensively, with multiple accounts. I realise that neither bank will be bothered by losing my custom, as I am just one of millions. Still, I have alternatives, which I will seriously consider now.

masonic

I trust Bank A wasn't a Russian bank, as I understand they've been having problems with their SWIFT payments of late?

Band7

masonic said:

I trust Bank A wasn't a Russian bank, as I understand they've been having problems with their SWIFT payments of late?

Which Russian Bank is FCA/PRA authorised/regulated? Not sure there ever was one, but if I am under-informed, please let me know. I'd very happily start another cruisade, if outside the scope of the MSE Budgeting and Bank Accounts forum  . Clearly, FCA/PRA would be very misguided to grant/retain a licence to a Russian Bank in the current circumstances, and it would represent a very major issue for one Mr. Sunak. 

masonic

Band7 said:

masonic said:

I trust Bank A wasn't a Russian bank, as I understand they've been having problems with their SWIFT payments of late?

Which Russian Bank is FCA/PRA authorised/regulated? Not sure there ever was one, but if I am under-informed, please let me know. I'd very happily start another cruisade, if outside the scope of the MSE Budgeting and Bank Accounts forum  . Clearly, FCA/PRA would be very misguided to grant/retain a licence to a Russian Bank in the current circumstances, and it would represent a very major issue for one Mr. Sunak. 

My post was largely made in jest, but the pattern of what happened (payment seemingly went through electronically, your account was correctly identified as the destination account, but there was then an intervention resulting in it being rejected, and Bank B is now being evasive about it) does look rather like a risk-based decision was made.

Based on the limited information you provided, it would be a reasonable deduction that your money is being held offshore, so as per FCA regulations Bank A would be operating in the UK through a subsidiary, which would be the FCA authorised entity in this case. The use of SWIFT as the primary means of transfer to UK current accounts would tend to put its centre of operations outside of the EEA. It would then come down to whether they are large enough to be able to route payments to the UK using their own banking infrastructure, or whether they are dependent on other foreign banks to route the transfer and which ones.

I'm not familiar with many banks set up like this. The only one I've had any experience with is Fineco, which is Italian and therefore uses SEPA transfers to move money around. However, I am aware of an FCA authorised subsidiary of a Russian owned investment firm operating in the UK.

Band7

I will not reveal the names of banks A and B until they have processed the complaints I have lodged with both of them.

What is the name of the FCA authorised sub of a Russian owned investment firm, please?

masonic

Band7 said:

I will not reveal the names of banks A and B until they have processed the complaints I have lodged with both of them.

What is the name of the FCA authorised sub of a Russian owned investment firm, please?

ITI Capital. It was the nominated broker that was used to transfer clients of failed broker SVS Securities. It did a terrible job of that and is therefore under restrictions and must exit the retail market (restriction imposed June 2022, exit by January 2023). However, it continues to be authorised to provide services to institutional and professional clients in the UK.

Ballard

masonic said:

Based on the limited information you provided, it would be a reasonable deduction that your money is being held offshore, so as per FCA regulations Bank A would be operating in the UK through a subsidiary, which would be the FCA authorised entity in this case. The use of SWIFT as the primary means of transfer to UK current accounts would tend to put its centre of operations outside of the EEA. It would then come down to whether they are large enough to be able to route payments to the UK using their own banking infrastructure, or whether they are dependent on other foreign banks to route the transfer and which ones.

I'm not familiar with many banks set up like this. The only one I've had any experience with is Fineco, which is Italian and therefore uses SEPA transfers to move money around. However, I am aware of an FCA authorised subsidiary of a Russian owned investment firm operating in the UK.

The last three banks I’ve worked for used SWIFT as the sole means to transfer customer funds domestically. One was a branch of an overseas bank but the other two are UK banks. Your assumption may turn out to be true but it is just an assumption.