My client says they paid but nothing arrived. What can I do?
Short answer. Less than you would like, and more than nothing. You will usually need the sender or the sending bank to initiate the investigation, because the payment sits outside your account until it arrives. What you can do is confirm it was actually sent, check whether your own bank is holding it, and give your client the exact information their bank needs to trace it. The practical next step is usually to get the right information to the party that can investigate the payment.
Nearly all the advice on this subject is written for whoever pressed send. It assumes you can call the originating bank, request a recall, or amend the instruction. If you are the one waiting to be paid, none of that is available to you, and the guidance quietly stops applying.
Why can't I just ask my bank to find it?
Because a payment that has not arrived has not yet reached your account, your bank may not have a record of it as an incoming payment.
This is the part that feels wrong and is nonetheless how the system works. Until funds reach your bank, the payment is outside your bank's direct visibility and is generally traceable through the sending bank and the payment network. Your bank may not be able to search for a payment it has no reference to.
There is one thing your bank can do, and it is worth asking before anything else: check whether the money arrived and is being held rather than credited. This is also the moment to confirm that nothing landed quietly, since an arriving payment does not always look like one on a statement. Payments can arrive and remain unapplied, for example when something on the instruction does not match your account cleanly. That is a different problem with a different fix, and your bank is the party best placed to tell you which situation you are in.
What should I ask my client for?
Four things, and the fourth is the one that matters most.
- Confirmation the payment left their account, not that it was scheduled or approved. Those are different states and clients often report the second as the first.
- The exact amount debited, which may differ from the invoice if their bank added a fee.
- The date it was sent, so you can tell whether it is genuinely late or still inside normal settlement time.
- The transaction reference, which may be a UETR for payments sent through SWIFT. This is a key tracking identifier for that payment, and having it makes the payment much easier for the relevant bank to trace.
Ask for all four in one message rather than one at a time. Each round trip with a client adds a day, and the fourth item usually requires them to go back into their banking portal, which people do once willingly and twice reluctantly.
How long should I wait before chasing?
Long enough that you are not chasing something that is simply in transit, which can take several business days for a straightforward international route.
A payment crossing borders passes through more hands than a domestic one and can pause at each. Weekends and public holidays can affect processing times in either country, or in the country of a bank in between. A payment sent on a Thursday before a long weekend may still be within a normal processing window several calendar days later.
If several business days have passed without the payment arriving or a clear explanation from the sending bank, it is reasonable to start treating it as a payment investigation rather than simply waiting.
Could the problem be my own details?
Possibly, and this is worth checking before you escalate anything.
A mismatch between the name on the payment and the name registered to your account is one of the first things worth checking at the receiving end. Minor differences can be enough: a middle name included or omitted, a business name where the account is personal, a transliteration of a non-Latin name that differs from what your bank holds.
Compare what you gave your client against what your bank has on file, exactly. Not approximately. If they differ, that may help explain the delay or rejection, and it is something you can address by sending your client corrected details in writing.
The same applies to the account identifiers. An incorrect IBAN or account number can cause a payment to fail, be rejected, or potentially be misdirected, depending on the payment system and the details used.
What is a trace, and why can't I request one?
A trace is a formal request through the payment network to locate a specific transaction. In most cases, the sending institution has to initiate it.
This is the structural limitation of your position. Your client's bank sent the payment, so their bank is usually the party best placed to initiate the trace. You can supply everything needed to make the trace effective, but the request usually has to come from them.
What you can do is make it as easy as possible to ask. Send your client a short message with the reference, the date, the amount and your full account details as your bank holds them, and ask them to request a trace on that payment. Framing it as a specific request rather than a complaint tends to get a faster result.
My client says their bank confirmed it was sent. Now what?
Then you know the payment was sent, and the question becomes where it is in the process.
There are three plausible places. It may still be moving, particularly if it is routed through correspondent banks, which adds hops and time. It may have arrived at your bank and not been applied, which is what the first question in this article covers. Or it may have been returned toward the sender, which happens on rejection and takes as long coming back as it took going out.
A trace can help establish which of these situations applies. Until someone runs one, all three remain open and further messages between you and your client will not narrow it.
What if neither bank will take responsibility?
This is the point at which someone needs to take the lead, and the sender is usually the party best placed to do so.
The uncomfortable structural fact is that you have no relationship with the sending bank. Your client has the direct relationship with it and is therefore usually better placed to pursue the issue. If the payment is genuinely lost between institutions, the sender is usually the party best placed to pursue the issue with the relevant bank or banks.
What helps is giving your client something concrete to escalate with, rather than a request to try again. The reference, the date, the amount, confirmation from your bank that nothing arrived, and the specific question of where the funds currently sit. A specific request to trace a transaction gives the bank a clearer question to investigate than a general complaint about a missing payment.
If a payment is returned, it may come back with less than it left with, because handling charges can be applied along the way. That is a real cost and it is worth agreeing with your client in advance who absorbs it, in the same way you would agree who pays the charges on the original payment.
How do I avoid this next time?
Three things, all of which cost nothing and none of which are about payment providers.
Send your details in writing and keep them current. Full name exactly as your bank holds it, account identifiers, and the bank's own details. Where available, use the bank's official payment-details document or page rather than retyping the information.
Ask for the reference with every payment, not only when something goes wrong. If your client sends it as a matter of routine, you never have to request it under pressure.
Consider a small test payment with a new client, particularly on a corridor you have not used before. A small test payment is easier to troubleshoot than a failed payment for a full invoice.
None of this prevents a payment getting stuck. It changes how quickly you find out where it is, which is the part you actually control.
This article describes the position of the recipient of an international payment. It is not financial or legal advice, and processes vary by bank and country. Confirm anything unfamiliar with your own bank.