Consumer complaint received 2024-01-26
Company: TransferWise Ltd
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Foreign currency exchange
Issue: Confusing or missing disclosures

Complaint:
Bank : Wise Address : XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX NY XXXX United States Prepared by Wise US customer XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX on XX/XX/2024. 

Brief description : Wise bank does not provide customer with the sending bank information in multicurrency bank transfer in their systems. This was a bank transfer initiated in Wise System that intended to capture funds in Eur currency from a bank in XXXX and send them to Wise US bank account ( XXXX currency denominated ). By error, the customer entered in Wise system as destination bank the bank account details from the bank account in Eur currency in XXXX. As a result of that, the customer had the error of sending funds to the same sending bank ( From bank account ), instead of sending them to my Wise US bank account. This error could be remediated if Wise made an improvement in their systems to facilitate a field to be completed by customer with sending bank account information. 

Further analysis provided Issues observed in the Multicurrency transfer module : 1. Lack of control mechanism at Wise to avoid sending a multicurrency wire to the same bank account of origin, which obviously carry unnecessary fees, losses in currency exchange and do not provide the service to the customer 2. More transparency for the customer of the complete flow of the multicurrency wire, adding the bank account FROM to the beginning of the tracking documentation for the wire.

3. Wise just has a reference number to locate the funds sent by the customer. This could be improved if the customer entered the bank account information from where he/she is going to send the original funds to be converted and transferred later.

Request for improvement : Add a control where FROM and TO in a multicurrency bank transfer can not be the same. These are the steps of improvement 1.Ask customer to enter the bank details of the FROM bank account 2.Provides customer a complete flow of the transfer including the FROM details. Currently Wise program just says the customer needs to wire the funds from his bank account, but do not collect those data points at the beginning.

3.Wise sets a control that FROM and TO account can not be the same. 
3.Alert the customer of the issue, rejects executing the order and advise of the proper way to enter the TO ( Destination ) bank account.

Advantages : 1.Avoid future customers to have the same unfortunate error that me 2.Make for Wise internally easier and more effective to reconcile original bank transfer from customer as in addition to reference number that could be not provided by customer in the wire description field, Wise will have all bank details from customer original wire. 
3.Provide a complete visibility to the customer with the original banking details ( the FROM account ) to the current tracking system in Wise.

4. Better customer protection and compliance with Bank Regulators. In my case, as a Wise US Account holder at New York it would be CFPB, FDIC, anti-money laundering and XXXX internal controls ( XXXX ) mainly. 
Consequences of not doing anything and considerations : 1.Other customers can fall into the same error and the Wise system would not alert them. This could lead to potential claims, customer frustration and erosion of customer base. On top of potential reporting issues to Regulators that could result in fines and losing the banking license of Wise in foreign countries.

2.The fixes requested are not difficult to implement and any customer is accustomed to enter or see the FROM or original banking details when ordering any wire, so little customer resistance is expected. Finally, it would provide savings in the Wise bank operations team reducing time in reconciling wires and probably further enhance the use of automation for this process.

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation