Bitcoin Forum

From which amount did your bank retained your money and asked you to supply additional documents etc? 10K+? 100K+? they never retained your amount? Planning to book partial profits and want to know others experience.

Please mention the country you reside if possible (if not, at least the continent). Thanks!

What country are you in?

I've done fine with using bank accounts in the UK, exchanges seem to be more temperamental/demanding though such as requesting kyc more than once. I'd assume the eea, uk, nz, aus, cad and Singapore are best for doing transfers.

I am in the EU

Never experienced this on my bank account.

I've heard that some banks are too strict when your account suddenly gained a lot of money and they'll actually investigate how you did gained the amount.

If you can deposit your profits to your bank account a little by little, I think they won't notice that although it will consume you time.

I think it will not help you at all to hear that a bank in India has frozen a hundred accounts or that no Japanese user has encountered problems with Mizuho Bank as even if you would manage to open an account with them you would still have problems when sending back the funds in your country if your bank is making of the habit of over enforcing AML procedures.

So, seeing you're from Slovakia, you should ask what bank operating there has no problem with bitcoin-related transfers.
Don't know the situation there but here in my country I've dealt with two banks from the list of those present in Slovakia also (Raiffeisen and ING) with no hiccups till now, but only once was the sum over E10k.
Of course, cases and cases, I've heard about bad experiences with them for other users and no problems at all from others.

for this point I have experienced it as a bitcoin user from 2015, and 2017 the balance in my account is quite surprising for bank workers because of its very suspicious value. at the same time the account was locked for several days to explain where I got the money. I say out loud, it's because of bitcoin and I earned it hard for the last 2 years.
On the other hand, perhaps the bank could not do anything because the accusations they made were nil. ;D

was just the bank or they involved the tax office?

I handled some P2P Bitcoin trades between 2016 - 2018 with someone in my country (Nigeria) so I used my bank to handle for NGN payments. Unfortunately, the bank restricted my account on more than one occasion that I exceeded the limits and called me in to submit further verification documents which I did.

Anyway, they eventually raised my limits but  there's still some limits so I always try not to go above those limits. In my experience, banks tend to retain/freeze up the accounts if you don't have enough proof about source of the funds or any other similar reason.

I am not sure in what reference it is due to improper information but my Indian account is good so for. However, the volume that is going into the bitcoin very very tiny. This could be the reason no one looked at it at all.
Most of the people here are salaried and doing bitcoin stuff side by side. As per my knowledge bank accounts associated with the salary accounts are not closed at banks discretion but only if employer wants to do so. Perhaps there is also big security of couple of exchangers who operates with complete legality and thus do not let down their customers at all. All you have to do is take precautions while remarking your transactions.
So no withholdings so far!

Before when a bank staff was interviewing me, I've told her if she knew about bitcoin but she said no. That was a couple of years ago I think and for sure today, they're aware of it.

And at least they've got an idea how some of their customers are gaining deposits if they ever say that it's from bitcoin investment.

I had an interview a few years ago also: I went to the office and explained that I was going to receive some "atypical" sums of money, that the reason was that I got paid some works in Bitcoin, and that I was declaring them also to the tax office. That I was asking before because I'd heard that some banks were freezing accounts related to cryptos.

She answered that it was totally ok for them, that they don't usually care about how their clients earn their money, but that she would write it down if I wanted, just in case a workmate ever raised an eyebrow about the transfers. She asked me if I would agree to make a short financial test with her (so she could sell me their products, taking into account my tolerance to risk) which I failed on purpose :D.

I have never had any problems so far, but it is true that I always try not to exceed some reasonable limits per transfer.

Anyway, I think that it could be a good piece of advice to use P2P services instead of directly withdrawing from crypto exchanges, as it is true that some banks don't like the latter, but wouldn't notice anything odd in a reasonable amount of transfers between individuals.

I live in a EU country and I've never had any problems with my bank account.
I guess that I'm "flying under the radars",because I don't transact large sums of money.
AFAIK,in my country all bank transfers above 2500 EUR are reported by the bank to the tax agency.
If you want to deal with banks and you have large amounts of money to send and receive,there's no other way than playing by the rules of the bank and submitting all the necessary documentation.

In my country, the matter differs according to the activity of your account, for example, if you are periodically depositing and withdrawing in huge amounts, they will not ask you, except for the first time you open your account.

When an abnormal change occurs in your account, for example 40% of your total account has been sent to you in one payment and you have never received that amount, your account will be frozen and more papers will be requested.

You can transact any amount of fiat into your bank account and there will be no problem with it as long as you are reporting and paying the taxes so if your bank holds any amount then possible reasons are transacted suspicious amount into your account which could be a smaller amount but still they can freeze if the source of money involved in shady activity

Or simply to update your KYC documents and this is easier when you reach the bank and give necessary details.

You should realize by now that every nation and even banks change from one place to another, you can't get a good answer for yourself from here unless you meet with someone who is from the same nation as you and uses the same bank as you. Even in that situation you would have to realize that what happened with their account may not be the same for your account.

I worked with a person who was selling fair products, like dodgem cars and all, huge stuff, he built entire funfairs from scratch and took it to where it needs to be, and most of the time he got foreign currency for it. Banks were so careful about him that at one point he got asked additional documents even after 20k euro, when it was like few million euroes that made sense but when it was 20k he realized it wasn't just about amount anymore, it was about how he was followed after that point on forward.

In my country, we do not have to directly use a bank to withdraw our funds from crypto. There are some services that are taking advantage of using the banks ATM to withdraw money from your wallet.

Fiat ATM have withdrawal limits and it will be very less amount for someone who is having decent amount of cryptocurrencies in their portfolio. But OP is not asking about visiting the banks personally, he says banks put the money on the hold for whatever reasons and it can be only sorted out when you provide enough sources that banks asking for.

Not sure I have ever had that problem where I live but I'm always conscious of the fact that big amount will attract suspicion and could possibly lead to undeserved treatment by banks , so I don't even bother taking such risk. I doubt I'll keep my entire savings or large amount in banks that are not really transparent, & can do whatever they want without your consent. Prefer to be my own bank and fully control mine. Amount I can afford to risk will remain in the centralized/opaque banks.

Depends on what county you do live in but overall banks do have threshold for the alarm to ring which would really require more verification and other documents when big money is deposited or get involved.

Here in my case or my country which does have that $10,000 single transaction would really be ringing up those bells or would really be getting some attention from banks knowing that AMLA or simply
anti laundering law will be the most common thing you will be having an issue.

They do have all the full rights to hold up those funds if you cant able to show proof on where those funds came from and its really a pain in the ass.

In as much as you submitted a good verification documents, you are liable to transfer any amount of money from your bank account. Certainly those documents could be country ID card and electricity bills, these two allows you create a non-stop amount to transfer in your fiat account. In Nigeria we have students account which allows out to handle amount of money not greater than $416, because it can be created with student's card, while the above mentioned one can let you deals with higher amount firm $500+

Always different. I use cards from different countries, and most often this happens only when you try to transfer a large amount, or when you transfer money in an unusual way,
for example, from one system to another, but you have not done this before. As far as the amount of money is concerned, everything will vary from country to country.

One of the negative part when you do rely out on banking system since its centralized then you do need to follow the terms if not then expect for follow up requirements.
Its true that this will be depending on countries laws because it do differs from places to place.Some might be that serious on money laundering and some wouldnt really
just put up much attention to that even their depositors do make out big transactions which is already out of their scope but still having no issues and still continue
to make use of their service.I havent experienced it though because i dont have that much money to begin with.  :P

I come from a country in Asia, and for my country if I make a deposit under $ 10k there is no question about the source of the money. But if we want
to make a withdrawal above $ 1000, the bank will ask for our identity card. To be honest, I have never had the money in my account withheld
by a bank, until now I have made thousands of dollars in transactions that have always been smooth. Maybe because I make deposits and withdrawals
are always little by little and not done at once. That could be why I always make transactions at the bank smoothly.

There will be a question raised in their mind if you go to bank and deposit physical money into your bank account but if it happens via bank transfer then most likely there will be no questions asked because banks itself knows where that money comes from.And the same goes with the sending and withdrawal of money from your account.

Bitcoin is the online transaction and it's digital currency exchange system ,The Reserve Bank of India had asked them to stop providing services to firms and individuals who deal in bitcoins and other such virtual money. And exchanges got no relief from the Supreme Court.

Even before opening a bank account, usually, you have to provide all your details so it doesn't make sense how one can avoid KYC if using real banks. Are you talking about VBA? (Virtual Bank Account)

Yes if you are transacting huge amounts or the account isn't active but suddenly a lot of funds are being poured into it, then there might be additional scrutiny but that won't happen in VBA if you are using a good one.

I won't suggest doing any illegal activities through your own bank accounts if even do them at all via any source because I have seen some adverse things happening to users in past. There used to be a LBC user whom I knew was a legit seller, legit in the sense that he was trusted, but he was somehow involved in money laundering and faced more issues within the case than most of us would face in our entire life. So make sure what you are doing is legal since it involves your bank accounts.

You have not updated bro, India's SC overruled the restriction imposed by Reserve Bank of India so now people can trade and exchanges are currently working but in the future India may pass a law which can completely ban the cryptos or simply regulate the cryptos and impose high taxes but there is no sign of doing this yet.

By unusual do you mean transacting too many times within a single day? Like if one wants to transfer 10k, they sometimes break the bigger amount into smaller ones and send 1k but 10 times to stay under the radar. That kind of activities are easily detected, you are right.

Not sure about the system but a good VPN can be used which provides a static and dedicated IP so you don't have to worry much. And someone dealing in such high amounts shouldn't be too concerned about a $50-100 VPN. Maybe to solve the new system problem you can use a virtual machine like AWS and something like that and use the same machine every time.

I am not sure if these things can bypass security checks but for sure they reduce the detection by some margin.

I’m also afraid doing big transactions with the banks, especially that my salary is not that convincing, and this is why I do some P2P transactions with my friends and ask them to pay in cash. Banks are very strict especially if you’re going to withdraw your money but if you’re just going to deposit, there’ll be no questions being asked.

You’re dealing with the banks and you have no choice but to comply with their requirements since their are being monitored by the AMLA, and its too hassle for you if they freezes your account for being a suspicious. I also don’t transact big money with the banks and that’s why I never experienced to be asked by many supporting documents, this will only applies to those who have millions of money.

I hail from the Asia-Pacific region, though sometimes I stay in the US on very rare occasions. I can say that US or NA banks in general are quite lax when it comes to transfers from exchanges and withdrawals too. Perhaps it is so because of the prevalence of cryptocurrency dealings and talks about bitcoin/crypto on the region. Whereas if I'm in the APAC region, banks would always ask you to send proof of funds when transfers from an exchange exceed $1000, which is quite annoying though it is what it is.

I have been summoned in different banks and exchanges asking the same thing just because I deposited/withdrawn over $1000 in a day. This is why sometimes I do not deposit my funds but rather keep it in cold cash or on a debit card not controlled by any of the banks that I use just to avoid the hassle of going to the banks just to submit a piece of paper and answer some of their questions that I've already heard more than 10 times.

Almost every rich person holding and making transactions from their bank accounts whether they are buying and selling their assets which means their account also got freezed? When the user can provide the source of the cash then there is nothing wrong with doing transactions in millions but people choose to stay away from banks to avoid tax paying in my opinion.