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UK-Luxembourg bank transfer - intermediary bank?
Thread poster: Jiří Toman
Jiří Toman
Jiří Toman  Identity Verified
Local time: 13:49
English to Czech
+ ...
Oct 9, 2015

I have a bank account in Luxembourg (bank: POST Luxembourg, currency: EUR) and I invoiced a client based in the UK (bank: HSBC, currency: GBP). They told me that they had tried several times to send the payment, but every time it had been sent back to their account. They keep aksing me to check if IBAN and BIC are correct (they are, I triple checked and I received another payment with the same details on my invoice from a client based in Spain), they are trying to persuade me to create a PayPal ... See more
I have a bank account in Luxembourg (bank: POST Luxembourg, currency: EUR) and I invoiced a client based in the UK (bank: HSBC, currency: GBP). They told me that they had tried several times to send the payment, but every time it had been sent back to their account. They keep aksing me to check if IBAN and BIC are correct (they are, I triple checked and I received another payment with the same details on my invoice from a client based in Spain), they are trying to persuade me to create a PayPal account instead and today, they informed me that they had asked their bank and that details of an intermediary bank are needed. Why would I need an intermediary bank in this case?

Is there anyone who experienced similar issues with UK-Luxembourg or other international bank transfers? I am out out ideas, where the problem could be?

I would be grateful for any hint...

Jirka ▲ Collapse
 
Thomas T. Frost
Thomas T. Frost  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 12:49
Danish to English
+ ...
SEPA Oct 9, 2015

I have an account the same place, and I don't have such problems. It's advantageous because they don't charge for receiving foreign transfers.

P&T Luxembourg's BIC is CCPLLULL, only eight characters, and some banks have problems using eight-character BICs instead of 11-character BICs even if the eight-character format is perfectly valid.

They should issue a SEPA transfer. That is completely standardised in the EU. It's not the account holder's problem to figure out inte... See more
I have an account the same place, and I don't have such problems. It's advantageous because they don't charge for receiving foreign transfers.

P&T Luxembourg's BIC is CCPLLULL, only eight characters, and some banks have problems using eight-character BICs instead of 11-character BICs even if the eight-character format is perfectly valid.

They should issue a SEPA transfer. That is completely standardised in the EU. It's not the account holder's problem to figure out intermediary bank details. It sounds as if they are trying to do it as a non-EU transfer, but the UK is still a member of the EU, so SEPA is what they should use. This is presuming your billing is in euro. If it's in pounds, it is a normal, international transfer, they need to do, but it's still not the account holder's problem to figure out which intermediary bank to use.

It sounds to me as if they don't know what they're doing. ▲ Collapse
 
Sheila Wilson
Sheila Wilson  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 12:49
Member (2007)
English
+ ...
Short BICs can cause problems Oct 9, 2015

Thomas T. Frost wrote:
P&T Luxembourg's BIC is CCPLLULL, only eight characters, and some banks have problems using eight-character BICs instead of 11-character BICs even if the eight-character format is perfectly valid.

I have that with my French bank. It caused a lot of problems with a while - it was a new bank and they didn't really know what they were doing. Eventually, they told me to add 'XXX' to the end to make it 11 characters. That worked. Nowadays, they always use the full 11 characters (with the XXX) themselves.
 
Milan Condak
Milan Condak  Identity Verified
Local time: 13:49
English to Czech
Seconded Oct 9, 2015

Sheila Wilson wrote:

Eventually, they told me to add 'XXX' to the end to make it 11 characters.


A case of Fio banka.

Milan
 
Jiří Toman
Jiří Toman  Identity Verified
Local time: 13:49
English to Czech
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Problem solved, thank you all for your inputs Oct 13, 2015

It was the SWIFT/SEPA issue. They tried to send the payment as SWIFT and POST Lux is not in the SWIFT system, so that is why they asked me for the intermediary bank details (even if I issued the invoice in euros). I told them to issue the payment under SEPA, and it worked. Their accounting department seems to be a bit confused, but it should be fine from now on. Thank you all for your comments and help.
 


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UK-Luxembourg bank transfer - intermediary bank?







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