Bank account in Puerto Rico where their corresponding bank is in my country of residence

[Giorgiogori]

Hi all,

I am considering opening a bank account in Puerto Rico, the problem is that bank i would be interested to open the account with
uses as corresponding bank for eur one of the major banks in my country of residence.

Obviously the correspondent bank will know my information (residential address as well) when sending/receiving transfers.
I know information would not be reportable by the correspondent bank but i am wondering if their compliance department
may decide to share the info with regulators once seen a national usiing an account in Puerto Rico.

Anybody working or that has worked in a bank that may know what action (if any) could a bank follow in such a situation?

 

[Martin Everson]

I know information would not be reportable by the correspondent bank but i am wondering if their compliance department
may decide to share the info with regulators once seen a national usiing an account in Puerto Rico.

This can happen and will happen if there is due suspicion of illicit activity taking place in the vostro account. Vostro accounts are regularly monitored with sanctions filters and for various other reasons and this includes for residents to track illicit activities.

Anybody working or that has worked in a bank that may know what action (if any) could a bank follow in such a situation?

Each bank and country has their own rules when offering correspondence banking services to thirdparty FI's. For example Australia has AUSTRAC.

----
The transactions that "reporting entities" are required to report to AUSTRAC include:

• cash transactions of A$10,000 or more, or foreign currency of that value,
• international funds transfer instructions, either into or out of Australia, of any amount, and
• suspicious transactions of any kind, being transactions the dealer may reasonably suspect of being part of tax evasion or crime, or might assist in a prosecution.

----

If you are concerned then perhaps do not use that bank or specify a different correspondence bank in another country in the correspondence bank field of your SWIFT payments if they have multiple options in that currency. This is normal practice if you want to avoid default correspondence routing and select the correspondence bank you want to use.

 

[Giorgiogori]

Thanks, makes total sense !!!