You can receive US Dollars when you register an transferwise (https://transferwise.com) account. But keep in mind that the money then is on the transferwise account and has to be switched to euro to transfer it to your bunq account.

Sending in US Dollar is also no problem, because transferwise is integrated in the bunq app. (transferwise account necessary)

@Tim#59995 Huh, so if someone sends a payment in $US, Bunq doesn’t automatically convert it to EUR?

@Tim#60015 Oh, wow... That’s really really bad service. Glad that I learn of this now, thanks for posting! Never knew. This really is more like an online wallet than a bank isn’t it. :(

@LH-Black-Wolf#60016 Most other banks also require an intermediate bank for international transfers. It‘s called „correspondent bank“ in case they exchange currencies. It‘s hardly surprising, you‘re not dealing with a big corporation like HSBC, BNP or Deutsche Bank here.

@jakobd#60019 Yes the banks that cannot do it themselves use an intermediary and integrate that, fully automated. That’s called good service and it’s rather weird Bunq lacks it and simply refuses to process the payment. That’s very poor service and a severe problem for a “bank”. The longer I’m here, the more I find out how enchained you are rather than “free”. ;) There’s more often “Bunq cannot/doesn’t want to do” than “Bunq can do”. :( It’s clearly a limited online wallet, not a bank replacement by any means.

Being able to receive foreign currency and auto-convert is a must-have essential feature for any bank. Really shocking to learn Bunq doesn’t support it.

@LH-Black-Wolf#60021 You canvolut receive US $ with Revolut bank accounts

@Frank-Blue-Zebra#60033 Sorry for the fault "canvolut"

@LH-Black-Wolf#60021 Please keep in mind bunq is a young bank and does everything reasonably in its powers to roll out new features.

They are a relatively small and young organisation. Rome wasn't built in one day either.

@Petervdv#60045 I’ve kept that in mind and considered it likely irrelevant as most competitors that launched around the same time seem to support it. To cut Bunq some slack, I didn’t count Knab as AEGON already had actual financial experience. :) Incidentally, I’d rather have better essential functions for a bank than stuff like getting badges for example.

See what bothers me and why I clearly cannot hide my annoyance with this discovery, is that this inability to receive currencies other than EUR doesn’t (clearly) seem to be communicated anywhere. I can’t find it in the terms, I can’t find it in the pricelist, and can’t find it anywhere on the website... This is a very severe limitation, such things must be communicated.

The terms only make a note about SEPA banks being supported. I’m aware of that, as I actually read the whole document before signing up. But SEPA != EUR only. I mean there’s british pounds, norwegian kroner, swiss francs, swedish kroner and then there’s multiple banks that allow you to open an account in USD even as a consumer. Not accepting transactions from outside SEPA is inconvenient, but not necessarily a problem for me. But nowhere does it state you cannot receive other currencies, it only states your balance is kept in EUR. I figured that means it’s automagically converted to EUR for you, and that was fine with me.

A note in the Pricelist enforced me interpreting it as such. It states that for transactions in another currency, they’re converted to EUR. Now this is for outgoing payments by the looks of it, it’s the generic term “transactions” (meaning in/out) that put me off on that one. And to top it off: it mentions inbound SWIFT-payments in the pricelist. I already found that slightly confusing as the terms state it’s impossible to get transactions from outside SEPA (even states under “handrem” (handbreak) that such transactions are blocked, so I guess that’s just a fine for rejecting the payment, lol... Which also isn’t clearly communicated.)

So all the same: no explicit mention that you can only receive payments in EUR... I seriously can’t find a mention of it anywhere nor a note that Bunq rejects foreign currency payments. (And that’s also important, because the sender can be fined of a transaction fails, just like at Bunq...)

It’d be really nice if stuff like this would be really clearly communicated. It’s a fundamental feature that you’d expect which apparently doesn’t work, so that’s not something a bank should forget to mention in my opinion...

And that’s what pissed me off about this. :) I don’t like surprises, especially not nasty surprises.

So I hope Bunq will clarify this better on the site and/or terms for now; and hope they will start supporting receiving other currencies than EUR really soon as it’s a essential function imho.

@LH-Black-Wolf#60231 I understand your frustration and yes it would be nice and appropriate if they communicated this more clearly.

I also want to point out however that your statement "it's a fundamental feature" is really subjective. You miss the feature, I never ever needed it in my life.

But all things together, I also hope bunq will implement this soon. It will help them grow internationally.

@LH-Black-Wolf#60231 SEPA means Single Euro Payment Area. How do you think that is used also for (as an example) US Dollars? Take a look at this brochure for SEPA from the European Central Bank: https://www.ecb.europa.eu/paym/retpaym/shared/pdf/SEPA_e-brochure_2013.pdf and on page 5 you can read quotes like these "one currency: the euro is the monetary basis for SEPA. The single currency is the political driver for the establishment of a common market for payments". If you want to transfer GBP then you get "No SEPA transfer for you!" (with apologies to Seinfeld).

Just because there are banks in the EU that allow you to keep an account in a non-Euro currency doesn't mean that all banks in the EU should accept all those currencies for transfers.

SWIFT transfers can be done in several currencies, however the price list only mentions inbound swift costs for transfers in euro amounts (depending on the amount the costs go up). It doesn't state any price for an amount in USD.
I do think they should add a line in the priclist stating only euro transfers are allowed, though. Just to make it more clear.

So if you have an account in British Pounds and you want to transfer it to another bank you need to use a SWIFT transfer (assuming they aren't two banks in the UK). And SWIFT is a large pitfall of costs, rules, errors and what not. So bunq should add they only want to receive euro and don't do any currency conversion themselves when receiving SWIFT (and perhaps other rules they have for their SWIFT transfers).

@Tim#60265 That topic also references another topic for more information but that doesn't exist anymore....

I'm all for topics on Together with more information or background, but I don't think you should see Together as a replacement for the official rules of bunq. If only for the reason that the rules are a PDF that you can keep and reference you can't do with Together topics as they get hidden, replaced, renamed and so on.

@Tim#60273 Your together clearly works different than my together. See how it looks when a simple person instead of a moderator types in currency on together:

@JeroenE#60280 I was referring to the in-app verified posts search. The desktop version is the same for us. 😅