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  • How can I receive $US payments

@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.

          @JeroenE#60270

          I said I agree it should mention it clearly too in the other official documents such as Terms and/or pricelist. As for someone stating it is no where to be found is a little bit off as it is the first topic that pops up for me when I typed in currency.

          As for the Together discussion that's a different one and not up to me. Let's stay a little on topic. 🙂

          p.s. thanks, link is fixed.

            @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. 😅

                @Tim#60281 Can you use the bunq app to read Together before you are actually registered as a bunq user?

                  6 months later

                  AFAIK Bunq is the only Dutch bank that does not allow money to be received in other currencies. We've recently started to move to Bunq with our company. Reasoning was that Bunq allows the flat organisation to work efficiently by sharing (project) accounts. We could have chosen several other banks, but based on presented features

                  Bunq has presented itself as the new bank that does more than the standard banks, or do it differently. But I've been jumping from surprise to surprise, where the "please be patient with us, we're young" can be seen everywhere. It's getting on my nerves, to be honest. This is basic stuff and I have not been warned in advance that Bunq is lacking it, like @LH-Black-Wolf#60231 pointed out. Think about it: Bunq offers accounts for companies, and the webshop around the corner cannot receive an order from Sweden or the UK.

                  The company operates worldwide and is not being able to receive USD/GBP/AUS if we continue the transition to Bunq.

                  Please stop offering "Bunq for business" or get this done.
                  - https://together.bunq.com/d/1581-international-transfers
                  - https://together.bunq.com/d/10461-what-happens-if-i-receive-a-wire-transfer-in-gbp-or-usd
                  - https://together.bunq.com/d/7945-if-i-receive-a-foreign-currency-how-do-i-get-a-better-currency-exchange-rate
                  - https://together.bunq.com/d/6779-is-it-possible-to-receive-funds-in-other-currencies
                  - ...

                    @Vincent-Pink-Falcon#113095 The company operates worldwide and is not being able to receive USD/GBP/AUS if we continue the transition to Bunq.

                    This is not true, bunq is active in the European Econimic Area, but the cards should work worldwide. There’s a difference between the two. bunq dreams of going to the USA, the CEO is not making a secret out of that, but there’s an insane amount of paperwork involved, even the Dutch banking permit was a big thing to achieve. If it was that simple to offer USD accounts bunq would do so. But we, as outsiders, can only see the tip of the iceberg. That bunq only accepts Euros might indeed be a bottleneck for some companies, luckily everyone can inform themselves before signing up such that they sign up with the service that fits their needs best. Things like no foreign currencies / foreign currency payments are mentioned plethora of times on the forum. (I believe also in the T&C/pricing sheet). Not offering Business accounts is a bridge too far; many companies are happy with the current offerings. So, balance the pro’s and con’s and decide whether bunq is suitable for your needs, if you operate globally and deal with multiple currencies I can completely imagine that bunq is not for you at this stage. 👍

                      I thought it worked with the transferwise intergration, but apperently I was mistaken there ;)

                      ...Perhaps something that can be added soon (tm)

                        @Sjors-Orange-Wolf#113152 sending, yes, but receiving no. The TransferWise integration works one way. To receive money in other currencies you need to make use of a third party (this can be TransferWise!), convert the money to euros and then send it to bunq. 🙂 Anything non-Euro will bounce back automatically to the sender.

                        Make sure to send your ideas/feedback also to ideas@bunq.com, the current channel where ideas and feedback are collected by the Product team. 👍

                          2 years later

                          @Sander#113122 The issue is that nowhere in the information about the business account or onboarding was this mentioned at all. After moving all my accounts to Bunq, I now realize my client payment has bounced back because it is in GBP. Honestly it is not something I thought about checking, because even "new" banks have this capability. Highly disappointing, and no solution from support either. Highly disappointing!

                            @New-Mauve-Butterfly-2755299069#226113 Ich möchte das jetzt nicht heraussuchen, aber bin mir ziemlich sicher, dass es in den Geschäftsbedingungen erwähnt wird, dass Zahlungseingänge nur in Euro akzeptiert werden.

                              @Bernd-Cyan-Penguin#226144 Danke
                              Also tatsächlich 🙂

                                I must confess that I felt into the same mistake, after closing the N26 account because it didn't accept external payments (explicitly said in their terms) in the bunq pricing and first hand documentations give the idea that its supported. In my case, I will have to move to ING, since not even Wise can help. (Swiss Francs) if anyone knows an alternative, I would love to heard it