Now That’s What I Call Queries! Our Customer Support Top 10

Posted on the 25th June 2020 by Carol Allwood in Team blog

The country may have been in lockdown for the last 3 months, but the Money Mover Support Team has been as busy as ever working from home, helping our customers with a variety of questions and requests.

We thought we’d take a look at the most popular queries that have arisen lately and create our own top Money Mover Greatest Hits!

“I’m registering for an account. Why do you need all this information?”

As a regulated financial service provider, we need to gather certain information about your business and the individuals who control the business. This helps us support you and provide the service you need as well as prevent fraud on your account and also ensures we comply with regulations such as anti-money laundering.

Rest assured that we only ask for the information we need to provide you with our service, and we’re fully GDPR compliant.

There are certain types of business and activity that we can’t support. These can be found here.

If you're a personal customer we just need to verify your identity and address. If you're a UK resident, we can use electronic ID which will suffice in 80% of cases, which means we don't need any documentation from you.

“Why hasn’t my payment arrived with the recipient yet?”

If it’s only been a couple of days since the payment was sent, it’s likely still on its way. 

We send our payments via the SWIFT payment network, so if our bank and the recipient’s bank don’t have a direct relationship, they rely on intermediaries to process the payment; a sort of middle man that knows both parties.

The time it takes for the funds to reach your recipient depends on how fast these banks process and send on the payment, as well as the time it takes for your recipient's bank to credit the funds to the right account.

On average, 93% of payments in the three core currencies (GBP, EUR and USD) arrive within 24 hours of being sent.

If it’s been longer than a couple of days, we can investigate by putting a trace on the funds or using SWIFT gpi.

You can read more about how long international payments take here.

“My recipient has received the funds, but they’re $20 short. What happened?”

This is probably a routing fee charged by an intermediary bank linking our bank and your recipient’s bank. Our fee is built into the exchange rate we give you, so we always send the exact amount agreed when you confirm the transaction. 

Routing fees are becoming less common as transparency over international payments improves, but unfortunately, they do still occur, especially for payments sent in USD and AED. 

While it’s not possible to know in advance if a routing fee will be deducted, it’s likely that if you repeat the payment, the same thing will happen. Therefore we recommend adding an additional $20 to the payment to ensure the exact amount arrives with your recipient.

Routing fees can also be taken when you send funds from your bank to us. 

“What if the exchange rate gets better after I’ve booked a payment?”

When you book a payment on our platform, we guarantee the exchange rate in the confirmation by purchasing the currency on your behalf.

While this means that we can’t offer you a better exchange rate if the rate moves in your favour, it does protect against the exchange rate moving against you. 

You can always monitor the exchange rate on our platform using our Rate Alerts.

“Can you track a payment for me?”

If you made the payment on our platform, there’s a couple of things we can do:

• Trace - this involves sending a message via the same route the funds took, to request the current location of the funds. This method relies on the cooperation of the routing banks, so can take time.
• SWIFT gpi  - Over 3,700 banks globally are now enabled for live payment tracking through SWIFT gpi (Global Payments Initiative). Provided the bank processing the payment supports SWIFT gpi, we can get live updates on the payment within minutes.

We can only track the location of payments made on the Money Mover platform. If you didn’t make your payment with us then you’ll need to contact the bank or financial institution directly. 

“I need to make a payment in a particular currency/to a particular country but I can’t find it in the dropdown. Help!”

Money Mover supports all the world’s major currencies and a growing number of minor ones. You can find the latest list of them here.

We also support payments to the main trading countries.

From time to time our customers ask us to help them buy or sell currencies that we don’t support, such as Malaysian Ringgit (MYR), Russian Ruble (RUB) or Indian Rupee (INR). The reasons that we don’t support them are as follows:

• They are ‘restricted’ or ‘controlled’ which means that they may not be freely traded, or sent out of the country
• They are not offered by the banks or service providers we work with
• The network is unreliable (we’ve experienced a high instance of failures in sending or receiving these currencies)

Remember that, while we may not be able to make a payment in local currency to a country, we can usually send another currency (such as EUR, GBP or USD) instead. Many suppliers in countries with restricted currencies are well aware of the restrictions and are used to receiving payments in other currencies.

Similarly, we are sometimes asked to send funds to countries which we don’t support, such as Iran, Libya or North Korea. The reasons why we don’t support certain countries are as follows:

• The banks we work with don’t have a network or relationship in the country (this includes the US at the moment)
• They are subject to sanctions (trade restrictions intended to change the behaviour or a particular jurisdiction or region)
• Their controls against money laundering or terrorist financing are inadequate

These restrictions also mean that you won’t be able to open an account with us if you live in or are a citizen of a country we don’t support.

If you can’t find a country or currency then get in touch with the Support Team. We’re always happy to assist with specific situations and explain local regulations and restrictions.

“Why can’t you take settlement funds out of my bank account automatically?”

There is currently no link between your Money Mover account and your bank account. In order to settle a payment that you’ve instructed on the Money Mover application, you need to transfer funds from your bank account using the bank details (and reference) that we give you once you’ve confirmed the transaction.

We do it like this so that our process doesn’t get in the way of the controls and authorisation process that most businesses have in place. Separating our system from your banking service maintains high levels of security and makes fraud more difficult.

However, the recent adoption of Open Banking makes it possible to connect financial technology applications such as Money Mover with bank accounts securely. We’re planning to integrate these standards into our service which means that, if you wish, you will be able to link your bank account with your Money Mover account. This will mean that settlement funds can be debited automatically and opens the door to other time-saving and convenient services. Watch this space for more details!

“Can I hold balances in foreign currencies with Money Mover?”

Yes. It is now possible to hold balances with Money Mover in any of the currencies we offer. This functionality is in beta at the moment, but contact us if you’d like to use it.

“Is it possible to receive payments from other people into my Money Mover account?”

We’ve always been strict about only accepting funds from bank accounts in the name of our customers. The main reason for this has been to reduce the risk of money laundering.

Increasingly our customers have been asking us whether they can receive foreign currency payments from third parties, such as their customers. This is because they’re unable, or don’t wish to set up currency accounts with their banks, or just want to keep their currency transactions with a single, trusted provider (aka Money Mover!).

We can now provide this service. As with the functionality for holding currency balances, it’s in beta, but contact us if you’d like further information or would like to be an early adopter!