offshorebankwire.com

There are a number of common reasons why offshore bank wires are delayed.  When sending or receiving international bank wires, it is best to be aware of these common delays in clearing your funds — especially when moving large sums of money or when there is a time constraint involved.

One of the newer reasons that  offshore bank wires are delayed, unfortunately, is the monitoring of offshore bank transfers by government institutions.  In the United States, bank wire transfers are monitored by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).  This Orwellian sounding institution monitors information provided in the text of the bank wire to determine if funds are being transferred to a terrorist organization or country (or entity) under sanction by the United States government.

If a financial institution suspects that your bank wire is being sent from or to one of these entities, they must block the transfer and freeze the funds.

Unfortunately, the text of your overseas wire transfer may contain a country on the blacklist and make your money transfer supected of supporting a terrorist or criminal enterprise.  This can cause undue scrutiny into your financial affairs as you are unfairly painted with the same broad brush.

Even if you are aware of this problem and are a legitimate individual, carrying out legitimate business with cleared funds, it may not be enough.  Why?

Even if you are smart enough to avoid using US banks, many foreign banks will have correspondent banks they use for US dollar transfers in which international bank wires are routed through.  The unfortunate result can be that a businessman sending US dollars from Argentina to Venezuela could have their bank wire held up at a US intermediary bank in New York.

In addition, since the intermediary bank is collecting the float on your funds, they are often disincentivized to move your international bank wire through on a timely basis.

SWIFT Codes and Offshore Wire Transfers

Most international wire transfers are executed using the SWIFT system.  In the SWIFT system, each financial institution is provided an ISO 9362 code, also known as a Bank Identifier Code, BIC Code, or SWIFT Code. These codes are generally eight characters in length.

As an example Capital Conservator’s offshore banking accounts have a US dollar account through Uruguay’s government bank, Banco de la Republica Oriental del Uruguay (BROU).  BROU is an international bank. BROU’s  head office is in Montevideo, Uruguay.  Its SWIFT code for its primary office is BROUUYMM.

• BROU identifies Banco de la Republica del Uruguay
• UY is the country code for Uruguay
• MM is the code for Montevideo

For some receiving banks, by using an extended code of 11 digits, the international wire can be directed to a specific office. For example, BROUUYMM500 would direct the payment to an office of BROU numbered 500 “ciudad vieja”, or “old town” in downtown Montevideo, Uruguay.

(The preceding was meant as example only since BROU routes all incoming wires to the appropriate branch office by the individual account holder’s account number.)