I’m currently doing a daily trade that involves moving my money from Monzo to crypto then back to GBP in a European account then back to Monzo, which allows me to realise 2-5% arbitrage profit a day.
I’m fully compliant with all KYC/ML requirements with all parties involved.
However I’m moving 10k a day (Monzo max limit) every day for the last 4 months, so making my money work pretty damn hard.
Back of a napkin calculation I’ll be sending £3.5m through my account over the year, however so far I haven’t hit any fraud triggers or had a call or message from Monzo.
Is there any way I could get in trouble for this from a banking perspective?
I do not want to get black listed or something horrible, I just want to make my money work pretty damn hard.
Before you ask, I am fully tax compliant, this message was prompted by conversations with my accountant.
Appreciate if someone from Monzo could way in advise if I’m playing by rules or dancing on a knife edge.
This sounds like an absolute nightmare, disaster waiting to happen, probably fraud, possibly illegal and definitely risky.
Monzo will not reply and tell you that it’s okay, not okay, risky or anything else. You’ll just have to wait until (if) they ever decide it isn’t okay.
As Revels says, you’re very unlikely to get a formal response on here. If you haven’t already, it might be a good idea to ask the question via the in-app chat - that’s the way to speak to Monzo properly!
Why jump to that kind of judgement? We don’t know the OP, so it’s best to take what’s said at face value. If we accept they are declaring everything tax-wise fully, it’s definitely not illegal and it doesn’t sound like fraud to me.
Crypto doesn’t immediately mean fraud, whatever the banks would like us to think.
The activity itself is fine, the frequency may be the issue and however it’s put down in writing the bank may view this as a risk to them so exiting a customer for this behaviour can be possible.
I didn’t say “Go to prison you villain”, I just posted my thoughts, it sounds dodgy. Making 2-5% daily on £10k to me is in the “too good to be true” bracket, especially if it’s just moving money around. That surely is just money laundering?
I admit I’m not very savvy about crypto, but does the crypto exchange/site not have a cash balance account where your cash resides until you buy, and where any proceeds of sale would rest? Or maybe there is one with this that you could use? Would save you having to move it about so much?
As I say, non-crypto, so this may be pure nonsense and this is not a concept!!
Have you guys ever heard of day traders or scalpers? Both absolutely legal trading techniques. If you know what you’re doing, you can make a lot of money that way. Of course, people who can actually make money like that are maybe 5% of all people who ever try this.
And that’s the problem when you give banks so much power and so many sanctions when they get it wrong - they are trigger-happy just to avoid any potential trouble.
It might appear like ML to someone who doesn’t know about legitimate ways to make money that way. If it is not ML, then any decision taken as if it were ML is wrong.
You’ve already said you are compliant with all regulations therefore answered your own question.
The fact you are asking anyway doesn’t instill confidence tbh. But as the person moving millions of pounds around clearly you should know more than the average forum user.
Some people use card transactions for these things, i.e. debit card top up and refund. This way transactions are handled via MasterCard network, rather than constant Bacs payments.
Given the way banks like to impose artificial rules without logic or thought (“no crypto because fraud” is one coming to mind), it is very much possible to do nothing wrong and have your bank block you.
Case in point is Revolut who blocks accounts if you so much as look at them funny. They are better these days, but still, I had a block once for sending lots of small transactions to avoid a receiving bank fee that triggered above x amount of euros, then a support agent even tried to tell me it was against their T&Cs to use their service to avoid bank fees!! After I explained how ridiculous that sounded my account was restored, only to be blocked again the following year while I was abroad, for no reason.
So, if you are doing something that is perfectly right but can be perceived by a bank as wrong (incorrectly), it is prudent to ask the bank’s customers “has this happened to you? how much can this bank tolerate?” kind of questions. This is the reason everyone says not to use Revolut as anything other than ephemeral currency exchange or holiday pots while you’re away.
I’ve not heard Monzo being like that, which is a good sign they are more professional about their investigations and trigger points.
I think the onus would be on you to prove to the bank that all you were doing is /was above board if you are making several “large” transactions repeatedly …the bank cannot ignore a suspicion of ML even if its incorrect - they have to act …
When you need to apply customer due diligence measures
You must apply customer due diligence measures:
when you establish a business relationship with a customer (or another party in a property sale)
when you suspect money laundering or terrorist financing
when you have doubts about a customer’s identification information that you obtained previously
when it’s necessary for existing customers - for example if their circumstances change
if you are not a high value dealer, when you carry out an ‘occasional transaction’ worth €15,000 or more
as a high value dealer, when you:
make a payment to a supplier worth €10,000 or more
carry out an ‘occasional transaction’ worth €10,000 or more
I think the rules have both logic and thought, to be honest.
Can the account be temporarily blocked? Yes, that goes for any account. Will you actually be ‘in trouble’ with the bank, no your funds will be released as long as you have done nothing wrong.
Can the bank close your account with notice? Sure, again this goes for any account. Although obviously the risk is higher if you are sending huge amounts of money around given the risk to the bank.
This. I would be more concerned about having a personal account closed down (as it is being used for business) for it (if the OP is using a personal account).
To be honest it’s unlikely that any consumer really understands AML due diligence requirements. Most cryptobros think you just have to do an ID check or something. Even if they did understand it they wouldn’t have the resources to apply it, and anyway the bank can’t rely on a third party to do those checks - if something goes wrong it’s the bank that gets the comeuppance.
Just referring to my crypto example, when the majority of fraud involves plain old money and is perpetrated even by bankers themselves sometimes, a bank saying “no crypto because it’s only/mostly used for fraud” is either illogical, ignorant or hypocritical.
Sure there are rules that are logical, but seeing as banks like to keep them secret, we can’t know what those are. Anyone who’s ever had an account blocked for honestly not doing anything wrong, and whose non-wrongdoing can be objectively agreed upon by reasonable people, is definitely not falling foul of logical rules… or is it logical to block honest, law abiding, tax paying customers?