Cards of the Chinese payment system UnionPay issued by Russian banks have stopped working in Cyprus.
Citizens of the Russian Federation continue to face new problems with banking services after Western payment systems Visa and MasterCard left the Russian market. For making payments abroad, for some time the Chinese payment system UnionPay became an alternative, but since the beginning of the year, UnionPay cards from sanctioned Russian banks have stopped working abroad.
Now it has become known that Chinese cards and non-sanctioned Russian banks have stopped working in Cyprus. Cyprus is the largest “offshore” for Russian capital – before the start of the Russian war against Ukraine, 212 billion dollars of Russian origin settled here.
How report Russian media and cards of Russian banks operating in the UnionPay payment system began to be blocked in Cyprus on November 17.
In particular, we are talking about blocking cards issued by Gazprombank. This is the last large state bank of the Russian Federation, which has not yet been included in the EU sanctions list and retains the ability to carry out transactions in euros.
At the same time, Russian media claim that the Cypriot authorities “did not give instructions” to their financial institutions to block Chinese cards of Russian banks. The Cypriot Ministry of Finance reported that the decision was made by the “payment service provider” in accordance with its own policy and assessment of the risks associated with the effect of international sanctions against the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus.
Earlier, the Association of Tour Operators of Russia warned about possible problems with Russian UnionPay cards in China.
Meanwhile, at the end of October it was reported that the Kazakh authorities intend to introduce a ban for Russians on the mass receipt of bank cards in the republic. A bill has been prepared, according to which a residence permit in the country will be required to open a bank account.
Author: Artem Malinovsky
2023-11-24 18:24:35
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