Closed bank account for affiliate marketing

Just got a call that my bank will be freezing my bank account. I use it as primary account for my company and it receives just affiliate payments. They said they have to kick out 100 clients. It is small to medium private bank from Alps.

They said it is the pressure of USA and US correspondent banks. It is truly bizarre, because I do not receive there USD payments. Simply USA now meddles into European banking system. Somehow. I get payments just from Gibraltar, Malta and UK I think. I know the bankers and their families. They have a nice money from me, because they have very steep fees. Still even that relatively liberal bank will not allow me to do my business.

2 reasons why I am saying this:
1. You will feel it on your own skin soon. I remember how Raiffeisen closed my account few years ago for small bitcoin transactions. Now it is the norm. Same will be affiliate marketing, because they said, now it is gambling.
2. This is again huge kick for crypto. If the businesses can not make financial transactions, they will have no other way than to move into crypto. It does not matter how cracked and immature it is.

Which country is it?

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private bank from Alps

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sorry that is as much as I want to say

the bank is not important, the important thing is where the wind is heading

they literally said that this is US pressure: if USA can do this **** in European bank and the bank stopped the resistance (they said the pressure is ongoing, my banker can not go to USA because he is already facing jail for doing business with someone USA did not want), it is very bad news

USA is pressing through correspondent banks; it makes no sense to me, because the SEPA payments do not go through US banks or it should not, but it is reality, so something like payment from Bet365 to European banks are now a problem

it is not a first issue I heard this year, Fio bank was also cut off international payments by their upstream processing bank... behind the curtains is a war

it is crazy

as i said, i do not want to complain or something, i have backup banks and this bank will even help me to find another bank, because they are really nice; they absurdly agree that I did nothing wrong, but they must listen to the orders of USA

not to mention that they have really steep fees so they are losing a good customer

so it makes the absurdity even greater

HSBC pulled this trick on me back in 2007.

Banks live because of deposits; without them, they are not banks.

Your bank may be in the heat for doing something fishy with the type of profiles (saudis, mexican cartels, who the eff knows) it has on its database, and probably is being questioned by the US world police force. They're doing this out of panic I guess. Because, closing out big accounts that are clean for the sake of closing is bizarre by all standards.

And I also don't buy the US argument your bank gave you. I think it's BS. If the US wants someone, they go out and get them. Your bank closing accounts is not going to wipe off any black engagements they have done in the past.

If it's a personal liability small private bank; then they're scared of what happened to Switzerland's oldest bank Wegelin, that pleaded guilty to helping Americans evade taxes.

So if the sh*t hits the fan for them; you're at least lucky to keep your funds intact.

Not many people realize that the US holds the highest power when it comes to policing the world banking system. Banks have to comply, or else they're booted out of the system.

Well, yes an no. I know the people a bit. They are under a constant pressure for a decade. Now they decided they want to sacrifice the business banking and go a bit more into the wealth management, because the pressure is just escalating. Of course any bank is doing fishy things. Nobody makes money from normies especially if you are not providing retail loans. They just said they do not want to be under the pressure anymore. It is nothing new. They told me about the pressure 6 months ago and 5 years ago. I just never thought that the pressure will impact even me. When I talked few months ago with the guy about crypto, he said they do not do crypto for exchanges and businesses because they would have to look at all depositors who put there the 100 USD and they have no sources for it. I suspect the gambling and revenue share here is the problem. They can not verify all the people who deposited to the sportsbook and I have a direct profit of it. Maybe CPA would have been ok.

I do not agree with "US just goes and takes whoever they want". Even USA have limited sources and they go only after big fishes who are exemplary cases. Because they want to have the image that they can go after whoever they want. USA does a lot of pressure under the surface.

CIBC in Canada knocked me years ago as well. Nothing you can do unfortunately

Perhaps receiving payment into an e-wallet before transferring it to your bank is a safer option.

I find it to be significantly easier to transfer my affiliate payments into my web wallets first and then requesting a bank wire transfer which only takes a mere 3-5 business days. At the end of the day, it's Definitely worth taking this option.

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Originally Posted by sweetbet

Perhaps receiving payment into an e-wallet before transferring it to your bank is a safer option.

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This isn't a bad idea. Now that I think about it I had issues with a foreign bank once (I was living in the country at the time). They questioned my transactions and said the dreaded words "money laundering" during the conversation! I rapidly produced documentation from Skrill, showed the bank that Skrill was UK regulated, and explained about the marketing business. Wrote it all down for them to keep on file.

It worked. They kept my account open. No worries.

I really think the part about Skrill being regulated was what sealed the deal. They assume Skrill had done proper due diligence or whatever before sending out the payments that hit their bank.

No. No Skrill or another 3rd party definitely.

Guys, I am not complaining, not looking for solution. I will find it. I am just pointing out the general things where the world is going to.

They must do a due diligence for Skrill and such as well, so in the end you end up trapped with Skrilldumbers, who once blocked my acct for months. So with Skrill you still have to explain to the banks where the money going to skrill are coming from and on the top you have to explain it to some Skrill imbecile, whose reply rate is between 7 days and never, while you have your account blocked and all people you paid money to have accounts blocked as well (exactly that happened to me 2 years ago and I am sending just small % to Skrill. Also they asked me all the time why I have so much money there.).

Neteller already has hard cap how much you can have there. Skrill can and will follow very soon. EUR has a negative interest rate, so they pay for the money we have there. Everybody is in for max profit.

The reason why Skrill works or worked is that those tricks with Skrill as proxy are ok for small payments. Some banks still do not care for payments under 10K, even if they are regular, but for those money even Skrill Mastercard is good enough; few banks do not care even about 5 figures payments, but def any bank is highly suspective for bigger payments without advanced explanation and Skrill obfuscation will not help [actually it makes things much worse]. And the threshold of interest of banks is going lower and lower every year. As the threshold of what bank institutions are able to swallow is going lower.

It is just little over 10 years when Skrill payments could be completely anonymous, just email to email. Almost bitcoin anonymity. 5 years ago this bank that does not want to have business with me anymore welcomed me with open arms and said our businesses match perfectly. 2.5 years ago bettingpartners lost all fiat opportunities to pay affiliates. Few years ago I was able to withdraw in EU thousands of EUR from cashmachine. Now in DACH area it is just 300 or 400, in Ireland 750, even in central Europe it went down from 3.5K to 1.5K to 2K. 10+ years ago you could pay in cash whatever you wanted. Now 10K is threshold, in some countries already 1K. Anything above is a crime. This is the trend.

I paid really extreme money for any transaction at this bank. The money were justified by high salaries of clerks who deal with me, since they really did a proper AML. They know a lot now about affiliate business and they said they want me still in in affiliate marketing, but not as gambling affiliate. Now the issue is: all the banks have more or less the same regulations about AML (the regulations come from central banks who have to follow more or less the same rules and from correspondent banks who started to use their power hard; the regulations are nowhere in the world just deliberate decision of concrete bank). If even the big money were not enough, how will the banks do the AML if you bring them just the normal 10-100 Eur/USD per month of fees? The answer is: they will not do the AML to anything irregular. We will be shown doors much more frequently.

The pressure is high. Money originating in gambling are tainted because of blah blah terrorism and blah blah moneylaundering. It does not matter it is a nonsense, because it is real.

Do not be a victim of survivorship bias, or be if you want. Either way there is nothing we can do with that, except crazy moves like getting my own bank or other financial institution that does my own AML.

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Originally Posted by vtyunby65

I find it to be significantly easier to transfer my affiliate payments into my web wallets first and then requesting a bank wire transfer which only takes a mere 3-5 business days. At the end of the day, it's Definitely worth taking this option.

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That means Skrill or Neteller. That's even worse. They've got their interests in gambling, block accounts, change fees, ask for affiliate contracts, etc. And at some point, you have to transfer it to your bank account anyway, which makes Skrill/Neteller just a very annoying middleman.


I've heard in, for example, Belgium legal operators have problems with banks. The same banks that, indirectly, keep on servicing illegal brands.

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Originally Posted by Triple7

That means Skrill or Neteller. That's even worse. They've got their interests in gambling, block accounts, change fees, ask for affiliate contracts, etc. And at some point, you have to transfer it to your bank account anyway, which makes Skrill/Neteller just a very annoying middleman.


I've heard in, for example, Belgium legal operators have problems with banks. The same banks that, indirectly, keep on servicing illegal brands.

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Absolutely. I asked 2 banks at Malta recommended by my bankers and one of them is even paying me. I was turned down by them as well.

There are more niches like us. For example legal marihuana businesses in USA have problems with banking as well. There is a growing big grey area of legal businesses who are going to be unbanked. We are not there yet, but at some point, we will. It is not a coincidence, it is a policy. Legality itself is less and less relevant. The rules are not enforced by states but by private enterprises who do it for state more efficiently. I just read an interview with some higher employee of state and he said it directly: "why should we enforce the rule, we are very bad at it, we will outsource it all".

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Originally Posted by Sherlock

Absolutely. I asked 2 banks at Malta recommended by my bankers and one of them is even paying me. I was turned down by them as well.

There are more niches like us. For example legal marihuana businesses in USA have problems with banking as well. There is a growing big grey area of legal businesses who are going to be unbanked. We are not there yet, but at some point, we will. It is not a coincidence, it is a policy. Legality itself is less and less relevant. The rules are not enforced by states but by private enterprises who do it for state more efficiently. I just read an interview with some higher employee of state and he said it directly: "why should we enforce the rule, we are very bad at it, we will outsource it all".

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Originally Posted by Sherlock

It is just little over 10 years when Skrill payments could be completely anonymous, just email to email. Almost bitcoin anonymity. 5 years ago this bank that does not want to have business with me anymore welcomed me with open arms and said our businesses match perfectly. 2.5 years ago bettingpartners lost all fiat opportunities to pay affiliates. Few years ago I was able to withdraw in EU thousands of EUR from cashmachine. Now in DACH area it is just 300 or 400, in Ireland 750, even in central Europe it went down from 3.5K to 1.5K to 2K. 10+ years ago you could pay in cash whatever you wanted. Now 10K is threshold, in some countries already 1K. Anything above is a crime. This is the trend.

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I agree with you there. The war on cash is real. Bankers are in control of damned near everything because more and more one needs banks in order to facilitate any transaction whatsoever.

I believe this is one of the factors feeding crypto-currency. Backlash against banking.

Just a side note: my problem was resolved quickly. One small bank where I have my private account with significant money allowed me to open a corporate account.

Another funny thing towards destruction.

One unnamed affiliate program owes me some 5 figs money. I do not want to name them, because they are ok and it has nothing to do with the issue.
They can not pay me for 2 months, the money are held by their or intermediary bank.

After 2 months they asked me for my CV. So the circle is closing. I choose this job not to meddle with corporate idiocy and here I am, in the middle of it. So the future is that if someone pays us we have to provide our resumes to obtain the money. All hail China.

same here in the netherlands. ING, ABN Amro, Rabobank..all had multiple personal conversations with managers...needed to explain all transactions for last five years in detail with loads and loads of questions. even for amounts of 100 and less i needed to explain. also needed to show all skrill and btc transactions including other middlemen such as blockchain, exchanges etc.

Banks are a real pain in the ass nowadays... it looks like they are pressured by governments to tighten everything. Long story short, you need to be able to tell where the money is coming from and also explain where it is for etc...very frustrating when you just run a regular business...

Well that is normal to explain where the money is coming from. This is one f...... step further.

In my case the money do not even come, because the bank is blocking it before the money even start to flow. And I have to send CV not to my bank, but to the bank of the affiliate company (which is not even known to me!).

It is madness. This is a new CV after 20 years. I just finished it. 20 years ago I made a desperate attempt to work on an oil platform after watching https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115751/
Since I am a cripple, no wonder no one responded to me :pissed: