The banking limits aren't unbelievable- if you live in Japan. Its standard bureaucracy. And the 5% is likely not a withdrawal at all, but a fiat to fiat transfer through a regular bank which charges them for it (though there is obviously a percentage in it for them as well). And when a bank is forced to submit reports on incoming transfers over $10k USD (in the US) to regulatory agencies, they also aren't allowed to tell the customer they are doing so (this is a fact). So EVERYTHING is a delay EVERYWHERE.
What about SEPA withdrawals coming out from Gox's Polish bank? Why 6 weeks delay?
If reporting every transaction above $10k causes so much delay, why I can wire 50k EUR to MtGox and I get them credited in 2, 3 days max.? Why the huge delays affect only outgoing and not incoming transfers?
It doesn't add up. Other exchanges have no problems with "banking limits".
Sorry Rampion, didn't see your post in between the wholesale trolling on here.
To answer your questions..
1) I dont know much about the SEPA withdrawals, sorry. I did my homework on Japanese domestic transfers because they affect me. However the SEPA withdrawals are coming from a Japanese bank, with the intermediary bank being in Poland. There are restrictions, in Japan, about these kind of transfers. Normally, not even major corporations come close to these. Understand that Gox is exactly what no one is prepared for. Endless transfers of all types and in all sizes. They do more transfers in one day than most companies do in a year. The restrictions were loose until the phenomena that is Gox comes into the picture. Gox is the very reason such restrictions were put in place; to prevent sketchy transfers. You may find your bitcoin tinkerings innocent, but the bank sees a zillion transfers from a pseudonymous currency platform from a million people like you, or maybe not like you, maybe they really are criminals. But how to tell? Everyone's alarm bells are going off. Every once in a while, a transfer that people CAN connect to SIlk Road or whatnot comes up, how do you think the banks feel? They are supposed to be profiting off all these transfers but here law enforcement from multiple countries comes knocking. Which is why Mizuho stopped banking for them. You probably didn't know that if you weren't using domestic transfers. Well, they started banking through Japan Net Bank, but recently they changed branches within that bank as well. Why do you think that is? Banks only touch Gox to get a taste of the money; but then they realize its poison and cut off all ties, one bank branch at a time if need be.
When you work with bitcoin you realize just how SLOW the regular banking system is. And regulated. There are RULES, no shit! And about other exchanges... Um you mean the ones whose CEOs are unnamed and are located in Eastern European countries? I dunno much about others except Bitstamp, but if I recall, money coming out of them also takes time for processing. They aren't backlogged, okay. They don't operate in a country that cares much about money laundering, either.
You can view the regulation as a good thing or a bad thing. I see it as good personally, because I'm not into bitcoin to buy drugs. I think legitimacy is important. MtGox is TRYING to be legitimate. They don't HAVE to cooperate with governments outside of Japan, right? But they do. That's because even if Mark isn't a very good coder, he knows legitimacy is necessary for bitcoins widespread adoption and survival.
One more note about SEPAs. Banking in Japan is only on weekdays, and no holidays. So "6 weeks" is too vague. Use business days and keep in mind Japan, intermediary bank locations, and the terminus bank ALL have different banking days/holidays. Included in your 6 weeks are many days which are not any exchanges fault. Use business days and everything will make a lot more sense to you, promise.
2) The reporting I was referring to is affected by deposits going into US individual bank accounts. They are not limited to just bitcoin exchanges. Any time an individual receives a large wire transfer, banks do an obligatory reporting to (I forget which regulatory body atm) FinCen or one of those. Again, keep in mind that before bitcoin exchanges, there was a certain number of these for any given bank, and then volume increased considerably as people began looping large sums though bitcoin exchanges to arb off Gox. It seems simple to you, but from the outside no one can tell arbing from money laundering! And either way the reports are obligatory. Imagine some bankers face when he signs up some innocuous new company for a new relationship with them, and suddenly this company causes such reporting to increase tenfold. They have to pay a guy to do this checking. And maybe the guy is saying, "I have no idea where this cash is coming from, we can't keep track of it all and we are gonna have law enforcement on us like flies."
There could be similar reporting in other countries but again, not my forte. Either way, its not secret that MtGox is cooperating with American law enforcement and regulation in the hopes of getting a foothold back in America. This is why KYC/AML has been instituted to even withdraw bitcoins.
However its much easier to deposit money into Gox because KYC/AML has already been done by banks on their customers. In my case, I use JNB, and the transaction is quite literally instant, from making the transfer online, to it showing up in Gox. Thats because JNB is Gox's bank, and since in this situation there is no friction, the wonders of Japanese technological innovation get to take hold.. voila. Now I suppose if I tried to make 8000 transfers out of my account, there would be a problem; but I'm not. There are no limits for receiving transfers, only sending. And that makes sense; its all thats necessary to track the money, you don't need to report the transfer twice.
I know it seems ridiculous to many people, and probably some of the people I think are trolls actually BELIEVE Gox is busy stealing their money- because they are across the globe, they are helpless and feel the FUD. But I've been here for five years now, and had my mind blown countless times by pointless rules which must be obeyed unquestioningly. I could tell you stories but would go off-thread. Its frustrating and ridiculous. Suffice it to say, one single company (Gox) pressing a hundred different little rules to the max doesn't impress the Japanese government. The regulatory bodies/banks involved aren't thinking, "man maybe we should change some of this to streamline it, make it better, make a buck or two but still keep it safe." No, no. Haha. No, they are thinking, "what is this silly foreigner trying to do? He comes in everyday with a stack of transfers, and every day bugs us to process more and more... but the rules are the rules. Oh hey, its lunch time." That's right. They don't give a shit. They don't read the FUD on this thread, and if they did, they'd probably be even less inclined to help.
You are dealing with a company in Japan. This is not Slovenia. On the upside, MtGox has the potential to be a legitimate instutition like one in America might be if regulation goes through and someone creates a US exchange. Mark doesn't care about losing business now because he wants the longterm business that being a real company will provide. Sometimes basic things (like knowing who the CEO is!) is important. Right now all these speculators care about it getting their money as fast as possible. But to a company that wants to survive bitcoins childhood, there are real-world problems to deal with. Like laws.
For the record, this post is somewhat devil's advocate. I don't know what Mark is thinking. But in general I see a lot of people talking about Gox when they know nothing about Japan and how it works, and blaming Gox/Mark when they should actually be blaming this bureaucratic country. I've posted about using business days and not 'its been 5 weeks' as a measure of time for the past month, no one has done so. You aren't helping anyone by lacking clarity, it only makes people suspect you are a troll by adding to the FUD. If people used banking days, they'd realize that you can predict your withdrawal fairly accurately, domestic or SEPA. You just need to know how the system works.
