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Some background:

I am from Norway and have recently been abroad to Germany for work that initially was supposed to last 6 months, and there was issues with the pay remuneration to my Norwegian account. The employer recognized the bank, and HR forwarded my international account number and SWIFT to the financial department, who after a few weeks reported that they were unable to pay to this account and asked for a German account.

In response, I spoke with this bank and another I have to see what the problem could be. They assured me it was eligible for international transfers and there should be no problem, and they could help provided more information. I forwarded this to HR, who could not provide any detailed information other than it doesn't work.

I provided both SEPA and non-SEPA bank information.

My employer then requested a German bank account, and said this must be opened. This seems however very strange to me. Must I open an entire new account in Germany only to receive my pay, and then transfer that manually every month to my main account?

For other reasons, I quit the job after 1 month and returned to Norway. I have informed my employer than I cannot provide German bank details, and provided them with an alternative Norwegian account.

I have yet to hear back from them, and enquired on the progress today.

How should this be appropriately handled? I feel as a large international company, they should be able to pay internationally. Is it likely this has to do with banking regulations, company policy, incompatible banking systems or lack of will to do it more manually on their part - or something else?

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    I feel you're asking the wrong question here. Do you actually care about how some folks on the Internet think this should be handled or what we think the problem might be? I suspect your real goal is to get paid; if so, the question should be asking is "what actions can I take to get paid?"
    – Philip Kendall
    Commented Feb 9, 2022 at 13:06
  • @JoeStrazzere from a perspective of an US-citizen your answer would apply, though according to: europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/… "EU legislation on bank charges for international and domestic payments does not apply to cheques." So that could lead to a undesired results such as additional charges.
    – iLuvLogix
    Commented Feb 9, 2022 at 13:46
  • @PhilipKendall That is true to some extent, but I still am curious why a large international company would struggle with a seamingly simple thing
    – Erik
    Commented Feb 9, 2022 at 14:46
  • @Erik because you don't fit into one of their processes, and going outside of process requires getting authorisation from 17 different layers of management.
    – Philip Kendall
    Commented Feb 9, 2022 at 16:26

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The quickest way to get this resolved may to get a money transfer account that has an IBAN and can accept payments in Euro. Personally I use Transfer Wise (www.wise.com, no endorsement intended but it works fine for me). All my European clients pay me on this account without any issues.

Large companies have large bureaucracies, cumbersome processes and lots of lawyers. The easier you can make it for them to pay, the quicker this will go.

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  • I was going to recommend the same thing. Transfer Wise is perfect for this. I have accounts there in three different currencies, and I can transfer between at almost no cost.
    – TonyK
    Commented Feb 12, 2022 at 21:46

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