Swift outbound blocked by NBC

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whiteribbon
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Swift outbound blocked by NBC

Post by whiteribbon »

Anyone has problems with outbound swift transfers?

Made an outbound swift transfer to my stockbroker account Monday, a day later my bank called me to apologize and said the National Bank of Cambodia blocked it and doesn’t allow the transfer.

Know from personal experience it’s difficult to get money into Cambodia now but now also the outflows seems to get controlled much more.
Crazy and a bit scary tbh. Not even allowed to do transfers to my own personal account with IBKR anymore?
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Re: Swift outbound blocked by NBC

Post by Bluenose »

I can understand if you don't want to answer, buy how much were you trying to transfer and to which country? If it's over $10k to the USA then you are likely to have to produce back-up paperwork. The company I work for has to provide copies of invoices etc to our bank before they will start to process any payments to the USA.
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Re: Swift outbound blocked by NBC

Post by Matty9999 »

whiteribbon wrote: Wed Dec 07, 2022 7:38 pm Anyone has problems with outbound swift transfers?

Made an outbound swift transfer to my stockbroker account Monday, a day later my bank called me to apologize and said the National Bank of Cambodia blocked it and doesn’t allow the transfer.

Know from personal experience it’s difficult to get money into Cambodia now but now also the outflows seems to get controlled much more.
Crazy and a bit scary tbh. Not even allowed to do transfers to my own personal account with IBKR anymore?
just the same with any poor country, i guess its based on your/my IP address, they sometimes think my paypal/atm/debit/swift/venmo is a fake because im not near my home address.
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whiteribbon
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Re: Swift outbound blocked by NBC

Post by whiteribbon »

Bluenose wrote: Wed Dec 07, 2022 8:31 pm I can understand if you don't want to answer, buy how much were you trying to transfer and to which country? If it's over $10k to the USA then you are likely to have to produce back-up paperwork. The company I work for has to provide copies of invoices etc to our bank before they will start to process any payments to the USA.
No it’s was under 10K. I do everything above board and pay my taxes, that’s why I was surprised also they didn’t allow me to transfer to my own registered stockbroker account abroad. They said NBC now doesn’t allow these kind of transfers anymore. It was the first time I heard of this. Just wanted to see if anybody else had this problem and/or warn others this could happen.
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Re: Swift outbound blocked by NBC

Post by Kuyavic »

My Swiss online stock broker bank (Swissquote) does not accept any transfer from a cambodian bank because of the grey list. The same with Revolut and Wise. So what I have to do is transfer to my Philippines bank account and then onward to one of the above banks.
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Re: Swift outbound blocked by NBC

Post by Doc67 »

They are trying to get off the list, this coming January. However, if you see what one of the main FATF issues were, (highlighted below), I can't see how things have improved viz a viz the human trafficking.

Of course, there is no mention of the possibility that grey turns to black! Then people with money here will be well and truly up a gum tree.

https://www.b2b-cambodia.com/news/cambo ... t-in-2023/
Cambodia Hopes To Be Removed From FATF Grey List in 2023
22/11/20220131
Cambodia’s Minister of Interior, Sar Kheng, is hopeful the Kingdom can be removed from the grey list (FATF) of nations at high risk for money laundering after submitting the latest round of documentation and inviting the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to visit and assess the country’s AML/CFT efforts in January 2023.

The Cambodian government is eager to have its bids reviewed and for the country to be removed from the watchdog’s grey list.

In March 2022 we reported that Cambodia remained on a list of nations under the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) for “deficiencies in their efforts to counter money laundering, terrorist financing, and proliferation financing” but efforts were underway to have Cambodia meet the necessary requirements and be removed from the list.

FATF said Cambodia had “failed to complete its action plan, which fully expired in January 2021.” They urge Cambodia to “swiftly demonstrate significant progress in completing its action plan by June 2022 or the FATF will consider next steps, which could include calling on its members and urging all jurisdictions to apply enhanced due diligence to business relations and transactions with Cambodia.”

Cambodia has been on FATF’s “grey list” since February 2019 for being deemed deficient in preventing illegal money flows both into and out of the country.

The main areas of concern have been the perceived issues surrounding gambling activities and human trafficking it was suggested in some media reports but the government has cracked down on these over recent months and introduced new regulations.

What Are the Next Steps To Remove Cambodia From The Grey List?
The FATF will conduct an evaluation of the Cambodian government’s efforts to stop money laundering after its 10th-round progress report had been made, reports suggested.

The Cambodian minister felt “substantial progress that has been made since the 9th round report’ and added the invitation for the watchdog to visit Cambodian in January 2023 was a “golden opportunity for Cambodia to be removed from the grey list”.

The last review was made in June 2022, and in October 2022 “the FATF made the initial determination that Cambodia has substantially completed its action plan and warrants an on-site visit to verify that the implementation of Cambodia’s AML/CFT reforms has begun and is being sustained and that the necessary political commitment remains in place to sustain implementation and improvement in the future.”

Cambodia has made a number of key reforms according to FATF:

MLA law (money laundering) and providing training on MLA to prosecutors and judges;
Risk-based supervision for FIs and DNFBPs;
Legal framework on preventive measures and conducting outreach to the casino, real-estate and MVTS sectors;
The quality and quantity of FIU disseminations, demonstrating an increase in ML investigations in line with risk;
Its effectiveness in asset confiscation; and
Establishing a legal framework for implementing UN sanctions related to targeted financial sanctions for PF and providing training to strengthen the skills of competent authorities to implement TFS for PF.
There are about two dozen countries on the FATF list by October 2022. It was confirmed that Myanmar was blacklisted by FATF but Pakistan and Nicaragua were removed from the ‘grey list’.


https://www.b2b-cambodia.com/news/cambo ... t-in-2023/
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Doc67
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Re: Swift outbound blocked by NBC

Post by Doc67 »

whiteribbon wrote: Wed Dec 07, 2022 9:58 pm
Bluenose wrote: Wed Dec 07, 2022 8:31 pm I can understand if you don't want to answer, buy how much were you trying to transfer and to which country? If it's over $10k to the USA then you are likely to have to produce back-up paperwork. The company I work for has to provide copies of invoices etc to our bank before they will start to process any payments to the USA.
No it’s was under 10K. I do everything above board and pay my taxes, that’s why I was surprised also they didn’t allow me to transfer to my own registered stockbroker account abroad. They said NBC now doesn’t allow these kind of transfers anymore. It was the first time I heard of this. Just wanted to see if anybody else had this problem and/or warn others this could happen.
Anymore? When was this decided. I don't remember reading about that in the Khmer Times.

If that is a true state of affairs then what is going on? When countries invoke capital controls in normally means something is going wrong in a big way.

@whiteribbon Was the money going to the U.S. as a final destination? Or en route to somewhere else?
Last edited by Doc67 on Fri Dec 09, 2022 11:54 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Spigzy
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Re: Swift outbound blocked by NBC

Post by Spigzy »

I am about to make a similar transfer, will let you know how it goes early next week.
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ut sint Guinness proxima morientis ori.
tunc cantabunt letius angelorum chori:
"Sit Deus propitius huic potatori."
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Doc67
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Re: Swift outbound blocked by NBC

Post by Doc67 »

Spigzy wrote: Fri Dec 09, 2022 11:53 am I am about to make a similar transfer, will let you know how it goes early next week.
Very interested to know what happens.
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Re: Swift outbound blocked by NBC

Post by armchairlawyer »

Money leaving Cambodia and going to western countries is a much more likely target for restrictions than the other way round.
This is because the main purpose of AML is to stop illicit funds from entering the mainstream financial systems.

If the FATF is going to be satisfied that progress is being made, they first want to see the necessary laws being passed (this has happened) but then to see that they are being implemented (thus the visit) and that there are no exceptions (this will be the tricky bit).

In the past the FATF did not concern itself with human trafficking and that is in fact a separate issue that is not necessarily linked. Hard to tell how hard they will press this.

There is a lot of pressure internationally on the FATF to tighten up AML. Any lawyer will say it is hard to prove a negative, so on their visit they will be facing a hard task.

Whatever the FATF decision, I think it likely that it will be harder to move money out of Cambodia for a while. In the West it took about twenty years to gradually weed out all the wrinkles that could be used to place illicit funds, real estate and casinos were major methods in the West too. It was not an easy thing to address, even with strong institutions and rule of law.
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