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Question EMI to EMI transfers: restricted or it's a myth?

MikeRoss

New member
Jun 8, 2021
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I'd like opening accounts with a few EMI's and spread the deposits through them all so I don't end up putting all eggs in one basket.

Is it a myth, that EMI's usually do not allow to transfer money to other EMI's?
Or maybe there are just specific EMI's that restrict that?
Which ones?
 
It's mostly nonsense. Some EMIs are considered high-risk by some banks and even EMIs. Revolut has had this problem in the past, mainly with transfer to personal accounts. There is/was a perception that Revolut was disproportionately popular with petty scams.

But it's not true in general. I see large sums passing across EMIs all the time.
 
For Wise it's true.

Tested it several times and if the money to the Wise Account comes from an real bank account and goes to a real bank account it takes them much longer till the AML/KYC kicks in.

Same with debit card. If you only top up the Wise account with debit card and send to real bank account.

Is the first transfer is coming from an EMI and is send to an EMI again then AML will kick in latest for 50k+ transfers.

Why?

No economic substance for Wise point of view. Wise is made to safe up on FX and Transfer cost so they expect to receive and send money from and to real banks as this is the purpose of Wise.

With this argument I have already seen 100k+ transfers coming in and going out in the same day and in case KYC/AML kicks in it's already enough for them if you mention you wanted to safe up on FX/transfer fees.

Wise is anyway the only EMI with compliance - beside of Paysera for EUR transfers - that isn't a s**t show.
 
I transferred from wise to bunq without problems or other way around but not too big amounts a few 3-4k eur transfers a month
Bunq is a real Bank and doesn't considered as high risk in any way as they even not work for business account with most EU jurisdiction. 3-4k EUR with sepa instant is anyway too less to trigger anything for Wise - except it's going to an Lithuania / UK EMI.

to add to my previous reply - it's maybe not EMI that triggers the Wise compliance but more the common sense that 99% of the Lithuania EMI purpose is to facilitate high risk business you don't get any bank account in EU with real bank anymore.