International Payment - who has jurisdiction

skray

Hi

I initiated a payment from my personal UK bank account to a personal account with Bank of Ireland Dublin. Both banks are one of the "large four" in respective jurisdictions. After 2 calendar weeks yesterday my bank sent me a message the money "has been returned by the beneficiary bank as unable to apply" and if the money is paid back into my account there will be a loss due to GBP-EUR and back to GBP conversion.

I called up the bank and explained that I have been paying into this account for the last 4 years and I simply retrieve the bank details from saved beneficiary list at net banking and I also checked with the beneficiary her account has not changed.

My bank is contacting Bank of Ireland Dublin to get more details why the payment failed and I also asked the beneficiary to contact her bank.

In the interim my questions are

1)if there is a dispute with international payment failing who has jurisdiction. Is there any ombudsman like service available that can assist me if required.

2)What about banks' obligation or service standard? Is "unable to apply" a professional reason for returning a payment. e.g. When Royal Mail fails to deliver a letter then apart from "unable to deliver" they will say something more typically address could not be found, insufficient postage, recipient not found at the address, shipment too large for letter box etc.

3)What typically happens if payment sum is large e.g. one party is making a payment to the other party by way of advance of delivery of service and payment must clear by a certain date, and after 2 weeks the payment is returned as "unable to apply" who is responsible for collateral damage and other inconveniences if the either of the 2 banks found responsible and what is bank's maximum liability.

Regards

Isthisforreal99

When you reference 'her account' you are transferring to an account not belonging to you?

No bank has to accept in incoming transfer and as you are not the benficiary in Ireland it is really up to 'her' to establish why the payment was returned.

Aa far as 'jurisdiction' goes, then it's not the UK banks problem that the payment was returned and the fact it's not your account in Ireland complicates matters. As far as 'obligations' go, then if the recieving bank is not happy with the source of funds then tbey are under no obligation to accept tbe payment so if there is any 'collateral damage' (can you expand) then really not their problem.

skray

Hi Isthisforreal99
Thanks for your response. It is not my bank account - it is a birthday gift for my niece and I am sending her money for the last 4 years or so from the same bank account to the same bank account. The amount is roughly the same as past years. We are both employed in multi national firms and nothing much has changed in last few years.
The situation will become clearer when the beneficiary is able to contact her bank in Ireland and ask why the funds have been returned.
But generally speaking - I understand the receiving bank can return the funds for various reasons - but I assume the reason has to be reasonable. Or is it the banks absolute discretion and cannot be challenged? Probably I should have informed the beneficiary in advance to expect the money and she should have called up her bank first.
(Regarding "collateral damage" it was a hypothetical question - see my comment #3 in original post)
Regards

wmb194

skray said:

Hi

I initiated a payment from my personal UK bank account to a personal account with Bank of Ireland Dublin. Both banks are one of the "large four" in respective jurisdictions. After 2 calendar weeks yesterday my bank sent me a message the money "has been returned by the beneficiary bank as unable to apply" and if the money is paid back into my account there will be a loss due to GBP-EUR and back to GBP conversion.

I called up the bank and explained that I have been paying into this account for the last 4 years and I simply retrieve the bank details from saved beneficiary list at net banking and I also checked with the beneficiary her account has not changed.

My bank is contacting Bank of Ireland Dublin to get more details why the payment failed and I also asked the beneficiary to contact her bank.

In the interim my questions are

1)if there is a dispute with international payment failing who has jurisdiction. Is there any ombudsman like service available that can assist me if required.

2)What about banks' obligation or service standard? Is "unable to apply" a professional reason for returning a payment. e.g. When Royal Mail fails to deliver a letter then apart from "unable to deliver" they will say something more typically address could not be found, insufficient postage, recipient not found at the address, shipment too large for letter box etc.

3)What typically happens if payment sum is large e.g. one party is making a payment to the other party by way of advance of delivery of service and payment must clear by a certain date, and after 2 weeks the payment is returned as "unable to apply" who is responsible for collateral damage and other inconveniences if the either of the 2 banks found responsible and what is bank's maximum liability.

Regards

How much money are we talking about? In my experience with bounced international transfers* you just have to be happy to get your money back and then move on.

If there are no obvious reasons not to e.g., your niece's account is frozen I'd try again using Wise.

*My last one took a month to resolve with lots of tracing of payments and both sides pointing fingers at each other. The reason for the failure was because my euro payment was sent as a Swift payment and not a euro Sepa payment, something that I wasn't given a choice in. A bank charged €7.00 somewhere along the line but I was happy just to forget about it.