Gavin Panella

BCEE is the Banque et Caisse d’Epargne de l’Etat, also know as the Spuerkees. It is one of the major banks in Luxembourg, and where my wife keeps some of her money, including the money that we made back from the sale of our apartment in Luxembourg in 2007. We’re renting at the moment, so it’s been sitting there, accruing interest, waiting for the moment to strike…

Which was Monday.

We’ve been thinking about buying a house in the UK. With the exchange rate nearing 1 pound to 1 euro, it seemed like a good time to move some euros into pounds, so we could prepare to lay down a deposit.

Chantal spoke to the BCEE last week on the phone, explaining the situation. She asked what exchange rate we would get if she were to transfer the money to a UK bank. As exchange rates change over time and the amount to be transferred was quite large – €40k – she wanted to be able to make the decision to transfer with the most up to date knowledge.

She spoke to three different people at the bank in all, including one on Monday who confirmed the rate of exchange would be about 0.95 pounds to the euro. By secure message, Chantal requested that the transfer go ahead the same day.

Today the money arrived, and we got an exchange rate of about 0.915 pounds to the euro. Eh?

Turns out that the BCEE correctly transferred €40k to our First Direct account on Monday. When First Direct received it, they did the exchange from euros to pounds. But, again, the BCEE said that the rate would be about 0.95. What happened?

The key was that the BCEE transfered euros and left the exchange up to the receiving bank. Even though Chantal had spoken with them three times, making it abundantly clear that it was the currency exchange she was interested in more than the transfer, they followed her instruction to transfer €40k to the letter. At no point did they say, “hang on there, don’t forget to ask for the exchange to happen first”, or put a note on her account explaining her wishes.

Actually, they did explain, today, when Chantal rung them up to ask what had happened. They cheerfully said that we need not have transferred the money at all; they could have done the currency exchange and kept it as a balance on the same account. Why o shitting why did they not explain this before? Grr.

The result is that a combination of Chantal’s (and my) lack of knowledge of the banking system, and the total lack of information from the BCEE about what would actually happen has cost us about £1200.

The BCEE continue to be as stone-like as they have been all along and are saying that there’s nothing they can do. They say that they followed the instructions in the secure message correctly, which I suppose they did, like compassionless robots. When Chantal appealed to them that she had explained her position to 3 separate people at the bank, the BCEE replied that it does not record telephone calls, with all that implies. Why do they bother answering the phone to give useless or misleading information that must later be disclaimed?

I don’t think there’s much we can do now, but perhaps someone considering banking with the BCEE will find this record and think again, or at least know what questions to ask. Perhaps the tiny ripple that this post will send out will eventually deprive the BCEE of £1200 of revenue, not that they’ll notice the loss like we will.