A certain four-letter word in a bank reference nearly derailed a Wellington woman’s overseas holiday.
Denise Magill was planning to visit Cuba over the Christmas period.
She booked and paid $2500 for the trip through an Australian tour company. But then, her travel agent called to tell her to hurry up and pay – or she’d lose her place.
“I'm going 'well, I have paid for the tour',” Magill explained to Fair Go.
She discovered that, while the money had gone out of her account, it had then been frozen by the Bank of New Zealand.
BNZ said it was unable to facilitate the payment as it fell outside of its internal sanctions policy in regard to Cuba.
Under that policy, BNZ doesn't allow direct or indirect transactions with the following countries:
Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Russia, Syria, Venezuela – Cuba – and those regions of Ukraine not controlled by the Ukrainian government.
Even though Magill was paying an Australian travel company, BNZ stopped her payment because she'd written "CUBA TOUR" into the particulars.
A BNZ worker told Magill that if she hadn't put "Cuba" in the reference, everything would have been fine.
Magill said that came as a "huge surprise" as she "didn't know that we had issues with Cuba whatsoever".
New Zealanders can freely travel and trade with Cuba. But none of the major banks in New Zealand would allow transactions to or from the country.
However, Kiwibank will let its customers use a credit card and access internet banking while in Cuba, but many banks don’t allow this.
The Co-operative Bank doesn't have a sanctions policy specifically against Cuba at this time but uses Mastercard and Convera for international transactions and they have their own rules.
The restrictions also affect the Cuban Embassy’s ability to operate in Wellington.
The outgoing ambassador, Edgardo Valdés López, told Fair Go that during his last four years in New Zealand, countless Kiwis and Cubans have called on the Embassy for help.
“I have received emails from a father whose daughter was studying in Cuba. He wanted to send her some money and a birthday gift and he couldn't find a way to do that.
People who have been to Cuba, they have tried to use their credit card in Cuba and the credit card was cancelled.
Solidarity groups that wanted to make a donation to a Cuban school and they were not able to find a way to do that.”
López says only one bank has agreed to work with the Embassy but under strict conditions. They can't make any international payments at all, not only those related to Cuba.
They can't have a card for their bank account or access foreign currency.
López says it’s “sad and very difficult for us to be in a country where all authorities and people welcome us very well and we [are] treated so badly by the banks”.
It all comes back to the United States' 60-year-old trade blockade against Cuba.
Restrictions were loosened during Barack Obama's presidency in 2015, but that was reversed under the Trump administration, which redesignated Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism.
Every year, the majority of the UN General Assembly, including New Zealand, calls for an end to the embargo, most recently shot down by the US and Israel.
The diplomat says he's raised the banking issues with our government, but it wouldn't interfere with private institutions.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade explained to Fair Go that in order for banks to participate in global commerce, they have to take into consideration the laws of other countries.
A spokesperson for BNZ says the sanctions on Cuba apply beyond US borders and are “actively enforced by US regulators and inadvertent violations carry potentially severe consequences and penalties, including fines in the hundreds of millions”.
It took 10 days, but Magill eventually got her money back from BNZ, although the bank still cautions customers to “record complete and accurate details whenever they submit a payment request. We have controls in place to check transactions for compliance”.
As to that burning question of just what did magill put in the description when she re-submitted her payment?
She settled for "happy birthday" —and the payment went through without a hitch.
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