How to receive a payment from Brazil

[Luolou]

Good afternoon all,

We are installing a rain effect in a theatre for the Ministry of Culture in Brazil, renting the equipment to them for a show. Two crew will go out to do the fit up later this month. (We have worked in similar circumstances before, but for a different Brazilian company). We requested an upfront payment of 75% (around £30k) before they collect the equipment for airfreighting to Brazil.

We received confimation from them today by email that the reqested payment had been sent over, however our Bank (Handelsbanken UK) phoned to tell me despite receiving it they have refused the payment and returned it to the clients bank, as Brazil is on their restricted list.

Handelsbanken annot offer a solution apart from suggesting we should be multi-banked which we are not. They also said we may find other UK banks wont accept money from Brazil either, but I have no idea how we would find that out. FSB havent been able to advise either - we were just put through to the Legal Dept. who couldn't help.

The company are paying in Sterling which is what we always insist on, but we are baffled as to how we can get this payment. As far as the client is concerned he has sent the money (albeit our end returned it) Can anyone suggest a way we can receive this money please? Could we send it through a seperate company which is also owned by us? (assuming that they would accept it).

Any thoughts or suggestions would be really appreciated as we have no idea of the next course of action.

 

[fisicx]

I've had the same problem (but for much smaller amounts).

They had to pay into a US bank who then transferred the money to the UK.

 

[Luolou]

@fisicx That's interesting, maybe i can suggest they do that, although with it being a government type payment (Institute of Art & Culture) this might not be allowed?

I'd have thought this situation would have come up at least a few times before if they do dealings with the UK, and I did tell them yesterday that the bank told me they wouldnt accept it , but they didnt agree so sent it anyway.

If they were to pay the money into a company like Western Union (assuming of course THEY would accept the payment) could Western Union then transfer it into our account? I've no idea if that's even possible - I'm just desperately trying to think of solutions.

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

Setup a Wise account?

 

[Luolou]

Setup a Wise account?

I know nothing about Wise so I'll look into that Paul, thanks.

 

[foxinthebox]

+1 for Wise. ANybody who works with any foreing currency, Wise are - I think - by far the best. 4 years now for our USD and EUR accounts, and they're literally faultless, never had any issues, delays, problems, nada.

 

[Luolou]

Just an update after all the stress I went through trying to get this payment in...

Because Handelsbank refused any type of paymenet rom Brazil (even though it was in sterling) We reinvoiced using Virgin Money as our bank account as we have a seperate, independent company with them (we checked with our accountants that this was allowed). Payments came through without issues and we then transferred the money to our business account. Thankfully all went smoothly and we have been paid in full

 

[NickZ]

Any thoughts

Do you need to use banks? There is Airtm, Uphold even ******.

 

[fisicx]

Do you need to use banks? There is Airtm, Uphold even ******.

They are dealing with the Ministry of Culture. They will need to use a bank. But you will also note the transaction has been completed so it’s all good.