European financial institutions, including banks, electronic money issuers (EMIs) and payment institutions (PIs), often refuse to refund money entrusted to them by their customers.
There are various reasons behind such behaviour by financial institutions, including:
- The institution has lost its licence;
- The institution suspects you of violating its terms of service;
- The institution suspects you of money laundering or other violations of the law.
However, the abovementioned circumstances are only referred to by the financial institutions so that they do not have to return your money to you, which, however, is an illegal act. Under European law, financial institutions are required to fully refund money to their customers, whereas in practice some clients are offered only a small percentage of the money back.
