[ANN] MT.GOX - SEPA Withdrawals Are Back Again!

[Mt.Gox Support]

TOKYO, JAPAN - May 11, 2012 - It took some doing, but we have finally sorted out our SEPA Withdrawal conundrum! As of May 10th, our European customers who wish to withdraw funds into their European bank account via SEPA can once more do so thanks to our new Withdraw Center.

All funds will be send through our Polish account and will involve the following fees:

- Withdrawals below 10€ are not possible
- Withdrawals come with a 2% fee with a minimum of 1% + 5 PLN 1% fee with minimum of 5.5 PLN

 As is standard for SEPA customers should expect a 1 to 5 working day delay from the time the withdrawal is initiated until seeing funds arrive in your personal bank account.

Of course if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact any of our support team and open a ticket at : support@mtgox.com.

Regards,
Mt.Gox Co. Ltd Team.
Media Contacts
press@mtgox.com

[paraipan]

...
- Withdrawals come with a 2% fee with a minimum of 1% + 5 PLN
...

Aww, a little high, don't you think ? SEPA transfers don't have a fee, you could charge 1-1,50 eur processing fee easily though.

...
customers should expect a 1 to 5 working day delay from the time the withdrawal is initiated
...

I think i will pass then until you guys have more personnel to handle the work and lower the fees.

[fimp]

...
- Withdrawals come with a 2% fee with a minimum of 1% + 5 PLN
...

Aww, a little high, don't you think ? SEPA transfers don't have a fee, you could charge 1-1,50 eur processing fee easily though.

SEPA transfers can indeed have bank fees. The SEPA rules only dictate that banks cannot charge more for international EUR transfers than for domestic EUR transfers. Only in the case that domestic EUR transfers are free then must international EUR transfers be free as well.

Domestic EUR transfers often have fees in countries that did not adopt the Euro fully. I.e. Poland.

[Sukrim]

As is standard for SEPA customers should expect a 1 to 5 working day delay from the time the withdrawal is initiated until seeing funds arrive in your personal bank account.

SEPA transactions have to be completed within 1 business day, so the holdup is purely on your end, correct?

Also: SEPA transactions are NOT free (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Euro_Payments_Area#Misconceptions) - most are for private bank accounts, business accounts on the other hand often cost flat fees of a few cents per booking. I haven't heard of a percentage fee on transfers though...

[Remember remember the 5th of November]

A little late, don't you think? It's been how long since we heard last about SEPA?

[Tuxavant]

Just came here to say: The only withdraws I do at MTGOX are in Bitcoin!

 

[Scott J]

2% can be very expensive.

I think Intersango only charge me 50p 20p...

[miernik]

As is standard for SEPA customers should expect a 1 to 5 working day delay from the time the withdrawal is initiated until seeing funds arrive in your personal bank account.

This is bullshit.

According to the EU Payment Services Directive, bank transfers in whole EU+EEA zone have to be credited to the destination bank account latest the next working day (provided they're ordered by some defined cut-off hour). And this actually works.

If you transfer takes more then 1 working day to arrive, don't believe these fake MtGox explanations about bank delays of 5 days - the truth will be that MtGox didn't submit the transfer on they day they told you they did.

Oh, and actually the cut-off time for SEPA in Bank Zachodni WBK is 23:30:

http://indywidualni.bzwbk.pl/przewodniki/polecenie-wyplaty/godziny-graniczne.html

see the table at the very end of this page:

pilny    EUR GBP USD PLN    23:30

So I recommend that withdrawals are processed every day around 23:00 polish time (CEST = GMT+2 currently) - that will assure lowest average waiting time.

Actually on that page they write about the directive and that they are fully compliant with it.

And I've tested that Bank Zachodni WBK sends the SEPA transfers SEPA cycle 1, and that is usually credited on the destination account sometime between 12:00 and 14:00 (Central European Time). So That's when it makes sense to log on to your bank account to check if its there (unless your banks sucks and credits them a few hours later, but it has to be there by the end of the day.

To learn more about SEPA (STEP2) clearing, read here: https://www.ebaclearing.eu/

And I assume the MtGox's withdrawal account is at Bank Zachodni WBK, because the deposit account is there, so its probably the same.

[minimalB]

This is really strange... and what the hack is 2% for? Isn't the idea of SEPA to have flat fee around 0.5eur for all transactions lower than 50.000eur?

[Technomage]

The fee is strange but then again there are other exchanges out there that have no extra fee for SEPA so use them if it bothers you. I'm glad Gox offers this option though.

[Coinbuck @ BTCLot]

I have a feeling that Mt.Gox is trying to make even more profit with SEPA transfers.

Sorry but you won't get clientele this way. There is intersango and it provides lower fees.

[Gabi]

Intersango is much cheaper and is a better option 

[paraipan]

Intersango is much cheaper and is a better option 

bitstamp.net has proven to be a reliable service to me for sepa and still is. Not affiliated in any way with them

[Gabi]

Yup, that too is fine

[doldgigger]

I have a feeling that Mt.Gox is trying to make even more profit with SEPA transfers.

Sorry but you won't get clientele this way. There is intersango and it provides lower fees.

Please try to be fair. They have liquidity problems (see https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=80562.0), so they'll have to raise some money somehow. I'd say it's better if they raise the money from their customers and provide reasonable service to the customers in exchange, rather than going with their previous venture (selling user data to the DEA: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/06/15/financial-bitcoin-idUKN1510930920110615). I'm confident that at the point where they have their customers' deposits backed by real money, they will consider offering competitive fees and processing times. So, I'm not averse to recommending them, provided that they'll update their terms some day so it makes clear that personal data of customers will not be abused or disclosed to third parties.

[defxor]

As is standard for SEPA customers should expect a 1 to 5 working day delay from the time the withdrawal is initiated until seeing funds arrive in your personal bank account.

This is bullshit.

Could be, but if so my bank publishes the same bullshit. When I make a SEPA transfer they tell me to expect "3 to 5 days" before it's in the receiver's account.

In actuality I usually see 2-3 days.

[miernik]

When I make a SEPA transfer they tell me to expect "3 to 5 days" before it's in the receiver's account.

In actuality I usually see 2-3 days.

Then show them this, if they don't comply, check if the country where your bank is registered has transposed the directive to national law, and if so - find the national law and sue them:

http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/payments/framework/psd_en.htm
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2007:319:0001:01:EN:HTML

Directive 2007/64/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 November 2007 on payment services in the internal market

Article 69

Payment transactions to a payment account

1. Member States shall require the payer's payment service provider to ensure that, after the point in time of receipt in accordance with Article 64, the amount of the payment transaction is credited to the payee's payment service provider's account at the latest by the end of the next business day. Until 1 January 2012, a payer and his payment service provider may agree on a period no longer than three business days. These periods may be extended by a further business day for paper-initiated payment transactions.

[Mt.Gox Support]

A bit of clarification is needed here.

1. 1 to 5 Business Day. Yes we all agree on this point that SEPA transfer as to be done in 1 business day or 24h. However, experience taught us that it can take, depending of the bank and circumstances (Public Holidays and so on) up to 5 business day. Also if the an Intermediary bank is involved in the process, and this happen fairly often, this will take at least 3 days : 24h for our Bank, 24h for the Intermediary Bank and the day after that for your Bank.

2. Fees, oh yes those evil fees! Yep even us are not to fund on them! The fees that has been mentioned earlier are external to Mt.Gox. By this I mean that in this very case intermediaries and Banks are in fact receiving those fees and not us!
And to follow on this very important subject, we are working/negotiating better fees and hope to offer you soon something better in this regards. We have a few solution that we would love to see happening soon!

Cheers!

[paraipan]

A bit of calcification is needed here.

1. 1 to 5 Business Day. Yes we all agree on this point that SEPA transfer as to be done in 1 business day or 24h. However, experience taught us that it can take, depending of the bank and circumstances (Public Holidays and so on) up to 5 business day. Also if the an Intermediary bank is involved in the process, and this happen fairly often, this will take at least 3 days : 24h for our Bank, 24h for the Intermediary Bank and the day after that for your Bank.

2. Fees, oh yes those evil fees! Yep even us are not to fund on them! The fees that has been mentioned earlier are external to Mt.Gox. By this I mean that in this very case intermediaries and Banks are in fact receiving those fees and not us!
And to follow on this very important subject, we are working/negotiating better fees and hope to offer you soon something better in this regards. We have a few solution that we would love to see happening soon!

Cheers!

1. There is no intermediary bank in SEPA zone, only SWIFT messaging is used between them. Tranfers show up in the receiver account in 24h and are made effective, can be spent, in 48h.

2. Fees are non-existent but some banks do charge a fixed fee (1,50-2,50 euro) depending if the funds are sent locally or outside national borders. The only reason i can come up with for mtgox to charge such a high fee is if they pass their international wires to SEPA fee onto their customers successfully disabling any advantages the euro zone provides.

[miernik]

1. 1 to 5 Business Day. Yes we all agree on this point that SEPA transfer as to be done in 1 business day or 24h. However, experience taught us that it can take, depending of the bank and circumstances (Public Holidays and so on) up to 5 business day. Also if the an Intermediary bank is involved in the process, and this happen fairly often, this will take at least 3 days : 24h for our Bank, 24h for the Intermediary Bank and the day after that for your Bank.

How could you come up with such bullshit? This doesn't even make any sense! The term "next business day" already accounts for public holidays, so you can't explain a "5 business day" delay with holidays in between, this is absurd. Transfers submitted to the bank on Friday before the cut-off hour (23:30 in BZWBK), appear in the receiving bank on Monday afternoon, period!

And you are completely clueless with the intermediaries, Directive 2007/64/EC doesn't allow any "extra 24h for each intermediary", it has to appear the next business day in the customers account even if there are a 100 intermediaries in between, if your bank doesn't do that, you can just sue it.

Besides that there are no intermediaries in SEPA, SEPA doesn't work like old international SWIFT wires that they have to go through banks which are correspondents of each other - SEPA has a common clearinghouse for all participating banks: https://www.ebaclearing.eu/

This clearing house has two cycles of processing: in cycle 1, in which all transfers submitted by banks sending then until 02:00 at night are processed, and released to the banks they are meant for at 09:00. There is a cycle 2 with the cut-off hour at 13:00 and releases at 15:00. Most banks only use one of these cycles for sending, but receive from both of them and credit customers accounts in 2-3 hours after receiving from the clearinghouse (that means around noon for Cycle 1, and around 17:00 for Cycle 2). There is also a new, third night cycle, but its rarely used by banks: in by 01:00, out by 02:45. All cycles happen only Monday-Friday excluding public holidays.

And this actually works this way, I've done tests of transfers between many obscure banks and the transfers are actually there the next business day! Some banks cut-off at 16:00, some at 19:30, some at 23:00, some may at 15:00, but that's about it for differences.

I get SMS exactly at the moment I receive a SEPA transfer, you are welcome to test from obscure banks by sending me a 0.01 EUR SEPA noting the day and time it was submitted to the bank, and I'll tell you exactly when it was credited to my account. I've done many of such tests, and read SEPA STEP2 documentation at https://www.ebaclearing.eu/ so I know very well what I am talking about.