Two international payments tips from Jane Hennessy
IBAN, or International Bank Account Number is required for payments to Europe. “We are hearing of truly exorbitant fees if you don’t have an IBAN account.”
Lifting fee: “This is a very common term in Europe. It’s the fee for touching the transaction and it can be hefty. By the time the beneficiary gets a payment of $50 it could be reduced by $15 because of lifting fees. With international ACH there are no lifting fees.”
Hennessy, Exec VP & Manager of Strategy & Marketing at Wells Fargo, also provided an update on the International Payments Framework, the member organization that was created a few years ago to improve cross-border payments. The IPF hopes to begin a pilot program of sending non-urgent, cross-border credit transfers to and from the UK by December 31, 2009, according to Hennessy. ACH rules and formats are not impacted by IPF rules and procedures. “We are not creating a new system,” said Hennessy, whose employer Wells Fargo, is a member of the IPF. “We are using an existing structure to enforce commonality. We’re doing this because so many companies are going global.”
Tags: Jane Hennessy, Payments
