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Poor crypto experience with Bankera

acidman

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Aug 25, 2022
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To begin with, I know that there are other threads about this, however, for the purpose of future searchers, I thought it might be useful to open a separate thread, so that people know about the fact that this provider is indeed troublesome. Admins, if you find this out of the context of the acceptable rules, please feel free to delete this as it is not my intention to "trespass".

I wanted to open a corporate account with Bankera so that in order to interact with a crypto exchange. I paid the 450 euros "account review fee" which was already suspicious and waited. And waited. And waited....

It took a bit over a month to get the account verified, not before I was asked for any possible invasive detail. From contracts, deliverables, to an audit about my personal professional experience. Now an interesting detail is that between every push-pull exchange of emails would pass at least 24 hours of delay. Whether during verification or other later part.

After getting the account verified, I moved some parked money to the newly opened account, and then tried to wire some to an exchange. The transfer got stuck in a pending state for a couple of days, then the "payment monitoring" crew got on my neck. I was then asked to show proof that I own the exchange account (OK), satellite bank account statements (annoyance starting), proof of source of funds of the company, invoices, crypto wallet addresses, and last but not least, I was asked to demonstrate the source of wealth/funds of the company that I was billing with invoices. Yes, I was asked to prove the source of funds of a company I do not own or have anything to do with.

Explaining that this is not possible nor reasonable requirements, they were eventually pleased to tell me that if I made the transfer again, they would approve it. And so I did. Guess? it bounced, with a message in Lithuanian saying the transfer bounced because of "reason: other". I tried to wire again lower sums and it happened again. Of course that they billed me a penalty for a bounced payment (w00t?) multiple times without explaining why. Trying to contact their support to investigate what happened, I was told that they will give me a response within 3 business days. Seeing that the communication pace was simply unacceptable and that no-one on their behalf was in any way forthcoming to help me sort out these problems, I resorted to close the account (extra 200 euros to pay, you thought closing an account is for free?). Oh, and they never even bothered to write me an email that the account was closed, I just simply cannot log into it anymore.

To conclude my experience with them: it appears that they are severely understaffed and have poor business standards with anything that has to do with a prompt reply. It is unreasonable that it should take over a month to open a bank account anywhere, and it is not reasonable to have to wait for days on end to get a simple answer to a simple problem. Also, the "account review fee" shows that they might be suffering from high client churn, at least for non-EU companies/individuals. The fact that I was interacting with an exchange might not have been in my favor, and in this regard I think they might be just tormenting clients so that they are pushed to use Bankera's crypto platform (spectrocoin), which I am sure might have been more "friendly".

So long and thanks for all the fish (and good riddance, too!).
 
To begin with, I know that there are other threads about this, however, for the purpose of future searchers, I thought it might be useful to open a separate thread, so that people know about the fact that this provider is indeed troublesome. Admins, if you find this out of the context of the acceptable rules, please feel free to delete this as it is not my intention to "trespass".

I wanted to open a corporate account with Bankera so that in order to interact with a crypto exchange. I paid the 450 euros "account review fee" which was already suspicious and waited. And waited. And waited....

It took a bit over a month to get the account verified, not before I was asked for any possible invasive detail. From contracts, deliverables, to an audit about my personal professional experience. Now an interesting detail is that between every push-pull exchange of emails would pass at least 24 hours of delay. Whether during verification or other later part.

After getting the account verified, I moved some parked money to the newly opened account, and then tried to wire some to an exchange. The transfer got stuck in a pending state for a couple of days, then the "payment monitoring" crew got on my neck. I was then asked to show proof that I own the exchange account (OK), satellite bank account statements (annoyance starting), proof of source of funds of the company, invoices, crypto wallet addresses, and last but not least, I was asked to demonstrate the source of wealth/funds of the company that I was billing with invoices. Yes, I was asked to prove the source of funds of a company I do not own or have anything to do with.

Explaining that this is not possible nor reasonable requirements, they were eventually pleased to tell me that if I made the transfer again, they would approve it. And so I did. Guess? it bounced, with a message in Lithuanian saying the transfer bounced because of "reason: other". I tried to wire again lower sums and it happened again. Of course that they billed me a penalty for a bounced payment (w00t?) multiple times without explaining why. Trying to contact their support to investigate what happened, I was told that they will give me a response within 3 business days. Seeing that the communication pace was simply unacceptable and that no-one on their behalf was in any way forthcoming to help me sort out these problems, I resorted to close the account (extra 200 euros to pay, you thought closing an account is for free?). Oh, and they never even bothered to write me an email that the account was closed, I just simply cannot log into it anymore.

To conclude my experience with them: it appears that they are severely understaffed and have poor business standards with anything that has to do with a prompt reply. It is unreasonable that it should take over a month to open a bank account anywhere, and it is not reasonable to have to wait for days on end to get a simple answer to a simple problem. Also, the "account review fee" shows that they might be suffering from high client churn, at least for non-EU companies/individuals. The fact that I was interacting with an exchange might not have been in my favor, and in this regard I think they might be just tormenting clients so that they are pushed to use Bankera's crypto platform (spectrocoin), which I am sure might have been more "friendly".

So long and thanks for all the fish (and good riddance, too!).
"I was asked to demonstrate the source of wealth/funds of the company that I was billing with invoices. Yes, I was asked to prove the source of funds of a company I do not own or have anything to do with."

That is really a joke. They just make things up to fleece fees from their victims hiding behind aml.
 
This sounds like classic Bankera.

The most surprising part here is that they actually followed up after taking the 450 EUR account opening fee. In many cases, they just stop responding and you have to chase them over and over for weeks and months.
exactly
let's wait for Gediminas' arguments now ;)
 
"I was asked to demonstrate the source of wealth/funds of the company that I was billing with invoices. Yes, I was asked to prove the source of funds of a company I do not own or have anything to do with."

That is really a joke. They just make things up to fleece fees from their victims hiding behind aml.
There really are some sick compliance officers who get off on the idea of "know your customers customer" (KYCC). I guarantee this kind of thinking will spread.
 
Wow...thanks for feedback. Bankera made at least 650 euros off you for nothing then...ouch hi%#.
 
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It is 2022. We dont have to play this game. Cooperation is voluntary.
Go to ACAMS conferences to see the s**t in the pipeline for the next decade... they talk about mandatory sharing of account info between banks (effectively this will mean when one of your accounts is closed all of them will be) and lots of other things that would make any non-pencil-pusher sick to their stomach.
 
Bankera is now playing thi
sharing of account info between banks (effectively this will mean when one of your accounts is closed all of them will be)
some say that this is already happening, and I suspect it has happened to me. All what it takes to ruin your banking life is a stalker/competitor who publishes a few defamatory sentences on the web. The banks’ monkeys trained to Google will do the rest.
 
Go to ACAMS conferences to see the **** in the pipeline for the next decade... they talk about mandatory sharing of account info between banks (effectively this will mean when one of your accounts is closed all of them will be) and lots of other things that would make any non-pencil-pusher sick to their stomach.
Well, such thing is well known. But we have alternatives in 2022. It starts with a B.

Pro tip to know data sharing does not work well, since their system are so old and data quality is generally pretty bad. Info mostly derives from outside, which are actually more deadly.

Bankera is now playing thi

some say that this is already happening, and I suspect it has happened to me. All what it takes to ruin your banking life is a stalker/competitor who publishes a few defamatory sentences on the web. The banks’ monkeys trained to Google will do the rest.
Some can do it. But there are a few countries where this is highly illegal and is being kept that way (for the time being...)
 
Bankera is a scam, avoid it.

If your company is in the EU you can open a Revolut business account and buy crypto through Kraken. If you want to sell it, you can withdraw funds from Kraken to either Revolut or Wise. Both allow it and it's compliant with their ToS. I did it multiple times, 4 digit amounts, no problems so far.

Go to ACAMS conferences to see the **** in the pipeline for the next decade... they talk about mandatory sharing of account info between banks (effectively this will mean when one of your accounts is closed all of them will be) and lots of other things that would make any non-pencil-pusher sick to their stomach.
That's why Monero exists
 
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Had a similar experience with SpectroCoin (also owned by Bankera).

The account actually got approved and I used it once. They asked me for invoice, which I provided and they were OK with it.

Then after a year, asked again for address proof.
I provided it but they keep asking again and again for proof of address and every time reject it for some unknown reason.
Nobody to talk to, I keep asking them to tell me what exactly they want and it's always "oh that document is OK", but when I send it it gets rejected.

Sent them 2 bank statements from 2 different banks with my address and they both got rejected.
Told them to close my account and go f**k themselves. Luckily I didn't pay them anything so they couldn't steal from me.

In general avoid Bankera/SpectroCoin and probably better to avoid any business based in Lithuania unless you have no other choice. I suspect that a lot of EMIs in Lithuania\Latvia are laundromats and who knows what they are doing with your documents. A few years later you may find out your identity has been used to launder some money for friends of Putin...
 
When you have difficulties to get a bank account for a business classified as high risk (gambling, crypto...), Bankera is presented as the solution in this forum.

In the end, most of the time you will be rejected and Bankera will have earned the application fee without any work (*) and without any risk taken by rejecting your business.

(*) our application lasted more than 9 months, we had to ask them again and again about the status of our application, and after that most of the time the same questions asked again. They didn't even have to read the details we gave. We finally gave up when they asked us to start from scratch after 9 months, and thus lost the application fee (no refund), all the costs involved (document certifications)...etc.

Their business model relies on the application fee and the hope of an account opening.
 
When you have difficulties to get a bank account for a business classified as high risk (gambling, crypto...), Bankera is presented as the solution in this forum.
Better said: there is a Bankera agent who (rightfully so) offers his services for introducing clients to it. I wish he used his knowledge for the benefit of a different EMI.
In the end, most of the time you will be rejected and Bankera will have earned the application fee without any work (*) and without any risk taken by rejecting your business.

(*) our application lasted more than 9 months, we had to ask them again and again about the status of our application, and after that most of the time the same questions asked again. They didn't even have to read the details we gave. We finally gave up when they asked us to start from scratch after 9 months, and thus lost the application fee (no refund), all the costs involved (document certifications)...etc.

Their business model relies on the application fee and the hope of an account opening.
I was recently approved, after months since I was rejected. Now I’m stuck at level 3 verification.
 
Had a similar experience with SpectroCoin (also owned by Bankera).

The account actually got approved and I used it once. They asked me for invoice, which I provided and they were OK with it.

Then after a year, asked again for address proof.
I provided it but they keep asking again and again for proof of address and every time reject it for some unknown reason.
Nobody to talk to, I keep asking them to tell me what exactly they want and it's always "oh that document is OK", but when I send it it gets rejected.

Sent them 2 bank statements from 2 different banks with my address and they both got rejected.
Told them to close my account and go **** themselves. Luckily I didn't pay them anything so they couldn't steal from me.
This is very common with Bankera and something I come across frequently. They are extremely bad at validating proof of address and will reject legitimate documents. Far and beyond worse than other banks and EMIs. I'm not sure which tool they use or if it's all manual inspection, but it speaks to a generally low level of competence in the compliance department of Bankera (team and management).

Better said: there is a Bankera agent who (rightfully so) offers his services for introducing clients to it. I wish he used his knowledge for the benefit of a different EMI.
If you got in early, Bankera used to pay a higher recurring commission than most of their peers. From what I've heard, they now treat new partnerships almost as poorly as new applicants.
 
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They are extremely bad at validating proof of address and will reject legitimate documents. Far and beyond worse than other banks and EMIs. I'm not sure which tool they use or if it's all manual inspection, but it speaks to a generally low level of competence in the compliance department of Bankera (team and management).

Judging by the 4 job adverts Bankera has for Compliance department it looks like they are lacking resources. They must be using school dinner ladies at moment to fill the gaps.


Senior AML Specialist/Associate

AML Specialist

Compliance Officer

Junior Compliance Specialist (Know Your Customer)​

 
By and large, the people currently working at Bankera, Pervesk, and SpectroCoin compliance have very little compliance experience.


You're not far off.
Judging by the 4 job adverts Bankera has for Compliance department it looks like they are lacking resources. They must be using school dinner ladies at moment to fill the gaps.


Senior AML Specialist/Associate

AML Specialist

Compliance Officer

Junior Compliance Specialist (Know Your Customer)

Revolut hires the same type of people on LinkedIn, even if it is running out of money for hirings (Revolut just got its banking licence application rejected by FCA in Uk, it has only a banking licence in Lithuania even if most customers are in the UK). Meanwhile EMI Paysera got fined by Bank of Lithuania and is prohibited from taking new clients outside EEA (+ Ukraine) until compliance is fully satisfied. It is possible that Bank of Lithuania is tightening its grips on financial institutions, either to look less ridiculous or summoned by ECB. I would be careful trying to open a business account in Lithuania and of course only for a fully transparent business (invoices, name of clients, etc… ). Also I would use either Gediminas from this forum or a law firm of good repute. And even then there’s no guarantee that within a year or two the account won’t get closed.
Fintech is no more a national priority in Lithuania, I think it has been replaced by biotech.
 
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