Long story short: I am on a D7 visa, but am in the process of switching over to a GV via IMGA investment with Bison Bank.
Originally, I had been planning to purchase commercial real estate and wired funds to my Millennium BCP for the purchase, but the deal fell through and I switched toward the investment fund option. About a month ago, I transferred the funds over to Bison Bank from Millennium BCP to finance the purchase of the investment fund purchase without any issue.
However, this transfer seems to have initiated some sort of internal investigation over at Millennium BCP since I had originally opened the account with them for my D7 visa and they didnāt realize that I was planning to apply for a GV. I have no clue why any of this matters to them since the investment has been made with Bison Bank and the money only passed through Millennium temporarily.
The problem is this: in order to submit my application for the GV, I need to have a letter from Millennium BCP stating that the funds were transferred from overseas. My lawyers requested this letter three weeks ago from my bank manager and they have been totally unresponsive to our emails except for the occasional brief email to state that they are āstill investigatingā the āreclassificationā of my account. They have provided no timeline whatsoever and with each passing day, multiple apostilled documents are at risk of expiring. None of this makes any sense.
Does anyone know if I have any legal recourse here or if there is an agency in Portugal to whom I can submit a formal complaint against Millennium BCP to get them to expedite this process?
I am at wits end here. That my application is now being held up due to this is just mindbogglingly frustrating to me.
Strictly speaking In banking terms it is a red flag to change the status without informing the banks compliance team about it. This comes under AML and legal options does very little in your case. These are the suggested steps you should take:
Get the proofs of your source of Funds
Get your tax returns
Your story on what really happened with all the proofs.
Send it to your Relationship manager and ask him/her to speak with the compliance team to unfreeze. This would take anywhere between couple of weeks to months but it will be solved eventually. One can never win against the compliance teamā¦
Thanks. Iāve already provided them with all the information they requested.
The thing is, what āstatusā did I change? Iām still legally here on a D7 visa and all that I did was transfer funds through Millennium BCP to Bison Bank. Ordinarily I wouldāve just transferred the money directly to Bison Bank, but because the money was originally intended for a failed real estate deal, it passed through Millennium.
And just to be clear, my account isnāt frozen, Iām just waiting for them to issue a declaration to include in my GV application stating that the funds came from overseas.
Resurrecting this thread as itās now been another two weeks and no update from Millennium BCPās end.
Iāve begun looking up individuals in their compliance department to send direct emails and havenāt heard back from anyone yet.
Is anyone aware of a governmental body in Portugal similar to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) in the U.S. where I might be able to file a formal complaint against them?
Itās been a month now and this is literally the last item holding up my GV application. Itās insane.
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