So long Bankera

[ellingtionia]

@Forester - per your earlier post on updates, developments so far:

- email exchange with @Gediminas who offered to reach out to his contacts on Monday
- message exchange with Gerli Viks (Bankera compliance) via LinkedIn who is escalating internally
- I raised a complaint with clear.bank - the beneficiary institution/API provider on this latest transfer who advised that the receiving account was actually located at FreemarketFX - the correspondent details for prior transfers (which is odd. Bankera's instructions for USD SWIFT changed in September to list Clearbank, and was previously FreemarketFX). They have forwarded to FreemarketFX and provided me with a name. I am going through the FreemarketFX complaints channel too. Fortunately both Clearbank and FreemarketFX are in the UK like me and FCA-regulated.

So I feel like I'm making some progress in tracking down my funds to be returned, but I should not be needing to do this
The bloody irony is that Bankera give me the third degree on every transfer with the implication that my businesses are the party that is risky/money laundering/undertaking some illegal activities, yet it's me, the customer, that's having to jump through hoops to recover money entrusted to financial institutions....

@Forester - after engaging directly with FreemarketFX, they advise they have located my funds and will be returning them to my originating account.
I plan to attempt one more EUR transfer into Bankera using their newly supplied vIBAN. If that goes smoothly, I'll continue - cautiously. If it doesn't, I'm done. Life's too short.

 

[Forester]

@ellingtionia, thanks for a detailed feedback; much appreciated.

From responses to my rejected/missing USD SWIFT transfer, I'm getting the impression that their correspondent is creating difficulties on some currencies and Bankera are at their mercy. This in part explains silence/poor communication from Bankera directly. One needs to clearly understand that Bankera is license-holder that's sitting on top of ClearBank's technology stack and regulation.
We will not be receiving a vIBAN for USD inbound transfers as we were previously advised:

"due to the intermediary's company policy. This means that it will no longer be possible to receive or send money in USD. We send you currencies that are supported by this correspondent: AED AUD CAD CHF CZK DKK EUR GBP PLN. (SWIFT Deposit Instructions). Also, it is very important to pay attention to whether this bank supports the sender's jurisdiction. We will provide you with jurisdictions, which is supported by our intermediary.

Regarding the payment that was rejected by our bank intermediary last week - this payment was rejected because we have some unexpected changes in this case. Payments could no longer arrive according to those instructions where "UAB Pervesk" is kept as the beneficiary/receiver."

What is annoying is at the time of our recent failed transfer, we followed the exact instructions/routing that was published on the Bankera SWIFT deposit instructions page, which at the time was ClearBank.

My conclusion here is that if you are using Bankera for anything other than EUR, ideally intra-SEPA you are at risk of uncertainty.

"This payment was rejected because we have some unexpected changes in this case" is a terrible thing to be told.

Well, this is not the first (and I am afraid neither the last) case when an account holder is a victim of broken relationships of the bank with its correspondents... (and in some cases, the bank could be less guilty than the correspondent). Nevertheless, I cannot accept Bankera's communication style; if it looks as described, it seems to be far away from that I expect.

@Forester - per your earlier post on updates, developments so far:

- email exchange with @Gediminas who offered to reach out to his contacts on Monday
- message exchange with Gerli Viks (Bankera compliance) via LinkedIn who is escalating internally
- I raised a complaint with clear.bank - the beneficiary institution/API provider on this latest transfer who advised that the receiving account was actually located at FreemarketFX - the correspondent details for prior transfers (which is odd. Bankera's instructions for USD SWIFT changed in September to list Clearbank, and was previously FreemarketFX). They have forwarded to FreemarketFX and provided me with a name. I am going through the FreemarketFX complaints channel too. Fortunately both Clearbank and FreemarketFX are in the UK like me and FCA-regulated.

So I feel like I'm making some progress in tracking down my funds to be returned, but I should not be needing to do this

Definitely. FMPOV, it is not your business to solve the problems that appeared between your bank and its correspondent.

The bloody irony is that Bankera give me the third degree on every transfer with the implication that my businesses are the party that is risky/money laundering/undertaking some illegal activities, yet it's me, the customer, that's having to jump through hoops to recover money entrusted to financial institutions....

@Forester - after engaging directly with FreemarketFX, they advise they have located my funds and will be returning them to my originating account.

Congratulations as far. Good luck!

I plan to attempt one more EUR transfer into Bankera using their newly supplied vIBAN. If that goes smoothly, I'll continue - cautiously. If it doesn't, I'm done. Life's too short.

Yes.
Well, we probably all know some even more horrible stories e.g. with Caribbean banks. But Lithuania is EU, not Carribbean; so I simply cannot get, how their customer service is working. (Really, I am not able to judge about the root of the problem, i.e. their relationships with intermediaries; but this must not be solved in this way.)

 

[JohnnyDoe]

But Lithuania is EU

This would require a long thread to discuss.

 

[Forester]

This would require a long thread to discuss.

Yes, very probably. I perhaps even guess what you mean. But let's put it aside. Say, simply: Lithuania financial institutions are not (some, past) Caribbean financial institutions. (If so, it would be necessary to re-evaluate various things.)

 

[Gjrwings]

Confidence in Bankera must be dwindling fast as I waited for over a month of back and forth compliance requests from Bankera. Everything was completely legit. They took the onboarding of €450 and rejected. “Due to internal policy.” This seems to be the same for so many cases on this forum.