Living between two countries

A rejected withdrawal sends you back to the start of the clock

In Colombia a withdrawal can travel for days and bounce at the end over one mis-ticked field. When that happens the clock does not pause: it resets.

By BNKA Team, Product teamAugust 28, 20267 min read

Ilustracion plana: factura en euros y campo de destino local con cuenta, tipo y entidad sobre fondo calido. Cobrar de Upwork en Colombia

The withdrawal goes out on Monday. The following Thursday an email arrives saying the operation was rejected, and the amount reappears in your Upwork balance as if nothing had happened. Except for the four days.

In Colombia that sequence is more common than in neighboring countries, and almost always for the same reason: a destination that travelled incomplete or with a field mis-ticked.

Three clocks, and one that can reset

Clock	What is happening	What can reset it
The platform's	The amount moves from approved to available	Nothing, once it is available
The international rail's	The money travels to the destination	A rejection at the Colombian end makes it run twice
The Colombian local one	The bank accepts or rejects based on the details received	An account type or institution that does not match

How the second clock behaves by route is covered in how long a transfer really takes.

The field that bounces without warning

Ticking savings when the account is checking produces no error as you type. The form accepts it, the withdrawal goes out, runs the full international clock, and gets rejected on arrival, because the details match no product at that institution.

The four details you need

A Colombian destination is assembled from account number, type, institution, and the holder's ID document. There is no single identifier that sums it up, so each piece gets verified separately. The full breakdown is in the four details of a Colombian destination.

Keys are not for this

Colombia's instant payment system runs on keys, identifiers that are easy to read out and point to your account. They handle collections inside the country well and have nothing to do with an international withdrawal, which asks for the account details in full.

Two ways to end up in pesos

Route	Who decides when it converts	What to look at
The conversion happens before arrival and pesos land in your account	The day the withdrawal crosses that leg	The amount credited at the end, more than the advertised rate
The withdrawal arrives in euros to a euro destination in your name and you convert when you choose	You	That the destination accepts euros and the name matches character for character

Once the balance is in euros, the conversion stops depending on the platform's calendar. At BNKA that step is the swap inside the app and, after it, the withdrawal to your Colombian account. The corridor detail is in Colombia and the reference for the pair in EUR/COP.

Worth stating plainly: BNKA is a technology platform. Financial services are provided by regulated partner institutions, and the terms in force for any given operation live in the app and in the terms and conditions.

What you decide and what you don't

You decide the details you save and how carefully you verify them, when you request the withdrawal, and the timing of the conversion if the balance is already in euros.
You don't decide the business days of the international rails, the rate of an intermediate leg, or the criteria the destination bank uses to accept or reject.
We can't tell you this one: the tax and foreign-exchange treatment of income from abroad depends on the Colombian rules in force and on your situation. That gets resolved with your accountant and the official source in front of you.

Checklist before requesting a withdrawal

Your name in Upwork matches your ID document character for character.
You checked the account type on the statement, not from memory.
You entered the institution's official name, which sometimes differs from the commercial one.
You count the estimate from when the amount becomes available, not from when the client approves.
You decided whether you want pesos on the withdrawal date or euros to convert when it suits you.

The wider picture of getting paid from abroad is in the Latino freelancer getting paid in euros, and where money leaks on each transfer is in the mistakes that cost you money when sending money home.

This is not financial, legal, tax, or investment advice.

Questions on this topic

If the withdrawal bounces, do I lose the money?

No, but you lose time. A rejection returns the amount the way it came, and that return is also counted in business days. Once the money is available again you have to fix the destination and start the route over, so one mis-ticked field costs double the wait.

Where do I check whether my account is savings or checking?

On the statement or in the account detail inside the app, not on the main screen. It is worth looking before you save the destination: the form accepts either option without warning, and the problem shows up at the end of the route.

Can I give my key to get paid from Upwork?

That is not what a key does. The keys used by Colombia's instant payment system are for receiving inside the country without reading out an account number. An international withdrawal asks for the full details: number, type, institution, and the holder's ID document.

Why does the same withdrawal take a different time each round?

Because international legs are counted in business days and have cut-off times. Requesting it on a Friday afternoon and requesting it on a Tuesday morning cross a different number of non-working days, even when the quoted estimate is identical.