Chile Forum

I have an account with Banco Estado and am preoccupied with the legalities of transferrring US dollars from my US bank account.
Can someone advise regarding the laws, procedures, amounts, and taxes?

Thanks for any advice. David

If you have already set it up with your bank, as in signed all the papers and given them a copy of your passport, DNA sample etc etc
then you are good to go. Taxes? why should you need to worry about taxes, unless this isn't "post tax" income? If you use your Chilean account to gain interest, you may need to think about that though.

Legalities?

Bankwire, USA bank account to Chile bank account, none on the USA side as the bank files any needed reporting paperwork. Chile side, search the forum on others experiences. Maybe depending on the size, you will need to prove or attest that the funds are from a legitimate source.

To put it in perspective, I just deposited a large stateside check in a Puerto Rican account and the bank negotiated a twelve day hold, down from twenty days on the availability of funds. $35 dollars is the usual fee, out bound for any transfer and the incoming fee runs 15 -25 bucks even stateside. We are a US territory/colony not even very far off shore!

Under Chilean law you need to prove where the money is coming from and where it is going for amounts over $10,000. Now banks will have different ways of implementing that in Chile, and they will not request the documentation all transactions.

In general the most we have ever been asked to produce for a client is a letter from the originating bank stating they are a client in good standing, and copy of the statement showing the transaction being issued. On what the funds are for that is fairly easy. For example, with property purchases we show the power of attorney or title. They often will accept living expenses as a reason, as long as the funds are not absurd. For example, 200 million pesos is a lot of living expenses in Chile. 10 million pesos would be more reasonable.

Getting the funds cleared fast however is typically a function of your relationship with the international wire desk. We typically can clear money laundering comity reviews in 1-3 days after the wire arrives in Chile. Sometimes they get hung in the bureaucracy for up to 5 days.

I understand I need to keep my wire transfers under $10k... how often can I send a wire under 10k and not cause problems for myself? I mean to get my money to Chile, can I send 10k a week, a month?

Thanks for your help,
John

It is cumulative. If you send say 3 million pesos, 5 times month, they are going to start kicking them to money laundering review.

There was recently a big scandal in the banking industry, and they have all clamped down hard. Banco Estado is now automatically kicking any transaction to committee review over $50,000 dollars, and from time to time asking for more information regarding people associated with the funds. Committee review seems to be taking a lot longer because of this. Keep in mind, until it passes committee, they don't liquidate. So pray the exchange rate forces are with you.

WOW! What a forum! Do all of these rules apply to EU transfers? My Transfers are usually about 5000E per every six months. I do know that if you transfer over 750 US Dollars by wire transfer that is logged in with the International financial crime information center and proper tax authorities. If over 10,000 US Dollars then a Cash transaction Report is made,in addition, to the proper tax authorities. I am amazed that innocent people suffer so much because of the transgressions of so few.
Do these rules and cumbersome time delays apply to checks??

We didn't know about the 10,000 limit and last week we wired $US 10,710 from NZ. It hasn't arrived. Does this mean that it has gotten stuck in Chile or in the US (Citibank was the intermediary bank, and Santander was meant to be the receiving bank). The money is being wired into an auto dealer's account to pay for a car. The dealer is Roberto at Caldo-Santi in Las Condes.

Any advice? How long will it take if it has gotten stuck in the money laundering check, and does this occur in the US or in Chile? If it's at Roberto's bank, would a phone call to the bank's headquarters speed things up? We don't want him to keep our $US 400 deposit and sell the car because the money hasn't arrived.

The dealer is Roberto at Caldo-Santi in Las Condes

Ohhhhhhhhhhhh, Roberto again, don't hold your breath........................................................................................

Mike O:

Do you have something concrete to say about Roberto at Caldo-Santi, or are you just winding?

Casey

Hey Casey,
I'm from NZ too, and I have been transferring money from NZ to Chile via an automatic transfer. I'm transferring from my bank account in NZ (ASB) to the bank account of my Chilean partner in Banco de Chile. The first transfer I did from NZ i did manually - go into the bank, fill in forms etc. It took 3 weeks to arrive here in Chile, and then my partner needed to go to the bank to sign for it.
I've since done 3 more transfers, and i've done them all online. They have all taken about 3 days to arrive, and go straight to my partner's account. This past month I transferred more than $US 10,000, although it was in 2 transactions, and didn't have any issues in having the money credited directly.
Unfortunately, it might just be a matter of waiting ....

Rachel

Hi, Rachel:

Thanks for that anecdotes. It's much more helpful than the last post, which just seemed mean-spirited.

I hope it doesn't take three weeks. We've had to postpone leaving Santiago until the car purchase is finalized. We needed a sound vehicle to drive the Carretera Australe when fishing season opens. Yesterday I emailed the auto dealer than his bank may be sitting on the funds, and he's going down there to make inquiries Monday. I think we'll also have our NZ bank fax something saying we're customers in good standing.

BTW, you're the second Kiwi I've "run into" in the last two weeks. In spite of the minor inconvenience we love Santiago and have met some wonderful people. There are far worse places to be stranded.

All the best,

Casey