Euro Pacific Bank moves to Puerto Rico

[JohnLocke]

Hello Guys,

I just got the mail below the last day and wanted to let you know since it seems to be of interest for many on this forum.

My name is Wade and I am from the Business Development team at Euro Pacific Bank.

You may have heard that EPB is moving to Puerto Rico? Which is positive toward 'CRS' and if you would like to know more information please feel free to reach out.

I hope business is going well, and would love to learn more about how we could possibly do more business together. I have listed my link below if you wish to schedule a time to speak, thank you.

 

[suzy]

Seems Puerto Rico is the NeXT stop to avoid CRS if this is true!! Did you contact them to get them elaborate on why they moved to PR ?

 

[JohnLocke]

Sorry not yet but will do!

 

[Peter Sap]

Hello Admin,

please could you let me know the contact details of Wade from EPB ?

 

[Raymond]

Hi,

I had a chat with them, and they told me that, they are taking Puerto Rico domicile as Puerto Rico hasn't participated in AEOI, the same case is with USA I suppose, so that's the reason they will be moving there as the secrecy aspect of St. Vincent will be gone soon. T

 

[Raymond]

But the problem here is that Puerto Rico is in deep economic crisis, and even though EPB is 100% reserve bank, won't it affect customers of EPB?

 

[negon]

But the problem here is that Puerto Rico is in deep economic crisis, and even though EPB is 100% reserve bank, won't it affect customers of EPB?

I have a feeling it will but lets see what is happening with this bank in the near future!

 

[Martin Everson]

Follow up to this old thread...

Well now that Puerto Rico is blacklisted by the EU, only correspondent banking and card problems lies ahead for wires originating from or going to Puerto Rico. You think you got wire issues now with EPB lol....think again as things are going to get a lot worse quickly if correspondence banks don't drop them altogether .

EU names four US territories on money-laundering blacklist

-----quote

"In total, 23 jurisdictions were identified by the commissioner for having “strategic deficiencies in their anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing frameworks”.

They include US territories Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa and US Virgin Islands, as well as Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, the Bahamas, Panama and Iran.

Identification on the list means EU banks dealing with any of the named countries will have to carry out additional checks in order to identify dirty money flows. Brussels will also invite the identified territories to improve their anti-money laundering frameworks if they want to be removed from the list."

----end quote

 

[Martin Everson]

P.S no amount of them instructing new clients to leave positive feedback it looks like since February 2019 on trustpilot will help them...lol . What are people getting to post these weird positive comments? Two month free fees...lol.

Euro Pacific Bank is rated "Average" with 5.2 / 10 on Trustpilot

 

[KJK]

Apparently Saudi Arabia dislikes being put on that list - and they have some power to lobby to be removed.

I'm not sure what situation Puerto Rico is in. Would that involve only transfers in EUR or other currencies such as USD as well?

 

[Martin Everson]

I'm not sure what situation Puerto Rico is in. Would that involve only transfers in EUR or other currencies such as USD as well?

Yes even if the wires are done by Fedwire once they touch the USD correspondence bank account of an EU entity the EU bank is expected to do enhanced due diligence on those payments. Would a bank bother for such as a small territory putting in place procedures?? I doubt it as its far easier to just black list it and reject payments...lol. Puerto Rico is not exactly a business critical country for EU and the fact its now a money laundering concern makes it easy decision for banks to make. Think what US banks did when the majority pulled correspondence banking services to Caribbean rather than deal with money laundering issues.

Still waiting for US itself to be put on blacklist as EU promised if it does not join CRS..lol .

Apparently Saudi Arabia dislikes being put on that list - and they have some power to lobby to be removed.

Yes according to reports the UK tried to prevent them getting on list because of Saudi arm sales. The Saudi's also spend a lot of money in UK so have a lot of clout.

 

[Edge]

Yes even if the wires are done by Fedwire once they touch the USD correspondence bank account of an EU entity the EU bank is expected to do enhanced due diligence on those payments. Would a bank bother for such as a small territory putting in place procedures?? I doubt it as its far easier to just black list it and reject payments...lol. Puerto Rico is not exactly a business critical country for EU and the fact its now a money laundering concern makes it easy decision for banks to make. Think what US banks did when the majority pulled correspondence banking services to Caribbean rather than deal with money laundering issues.

Still waiting for US itself to be put on blacklist as EU promised if it does not join CRS..lol .



Yes according to reports the UK tried to prevent them getting on list because of Saudi arm sales. The Saudi's also spend a lot of money in UK so have a lot of clout.

So all this blacklisting left and right that is putting me in a difficult spot is because of Trump ?

 

[Martin Everson]

So all this blacklisting left and right that is putting me in a difficult spot is because of Trump ?

Nothing to do with Trump this time. Blacklisting aka sanctions aka financial terrorism was happening long before Trump took office

 

[Edge]

Nothing to do with Trump this time. Blacklisting aka sanctions aka financial terrorism was happening long before Trump took office

yeah but never saw the EU taking shots at US territories and Saudi arabia .. right ?

 

[Artemis Eleutheria]

Seems PR is off the list ... for now:

https://www.consilium.europa.eu/media/38450/st07441-en19-eu-list-oop.pdf