Hope this isn't true.
Now is a great time for Chinese companies to promote themselves as an alternative to the west. Hiding in fear of western sanctions is not a good look..
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- Thread starter bd popeye
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Now is a great time for Chinese companies to promote themselves as an alternative to the west. Hiding in fear of western sanctions is not a good look..
If that’s the case then why is Russian bank sites still offering UnionPay cards?
"Hope this isn't true"
I know we bomb your country for 78 days, humiliated your political, and military leaders including your former President by sending him to the Hague. But let's bygones be bygones shall we. How about you also sanction Russia or ELSE!!
P. S. We also expect you to hate on China if you want to become a member of our another lap dog organization called the E.U.
P. S. We also expect you to hate on China if you want to become a member of our another lap dog organization called the E.U.
Its business. For UnionPay:
Western markets > Russian market.
Western hegemony is based on its gigantic markets.
Interesting approach and ideas from one of the influential think tanks in the U.S. on how to best restore the trust of Americans towards their government. I am not going to offer any critique but will simply post the accompanying article along with the discussion/talk presentation about the article.
Worthless shitty elite Brit’s that still dream that they are in the colonial era. All this shows to me, is that the UK as a nation is yet to eat its humble pie in full.
Seems real to me:
Translation by Deepl and Google Translate:
Large Russian banks, which found themselves under the blocking sanctions of Western countries, will not be able to issue cards UnionPay, as the payment system is afraid to cooperate with them because of the risk of secondary sanctions. This was reported to RBC by five sources in major banks, including those hit by the sanctions.
A source close to Sberbank said that the bank employees were told about such a decision of the Chinese payment system at a closed meeting, so "Sber" will not issue these cards. Sberbank is considering the possibility of issuing a co-baying card of the payment systems "Mir" and UnionPay, the credit institution reported on March 6. The statement was made a month before Sberbank came under the U.S. blocking sanctions.
The possibility of UnionPay card issue was also considered or was already working on it by Alfa-Bank, Otkrytie and VTB. Promsvyazbank, which was issuing UnionPay cards even before they were hit by sanctions, stopped doing so, the call center of the credit institution said. Three RBC sources in the banks say that these credit institutions will not be able to issue UnionPay cards due to concerns of the payment system itself. Two other sources explain that UnionPay has put negotiations on pause without explanation. "The project is temporarily on pause for now, they do not officially confirm the connection exactly with the sanctions, they say that they are on pause until further orders," said one of them.
Sovkombank also wanted to begin issuing cards "Halva" based on UnionPay, but abandoned these plans because the use of any cards of sanctioned banks abroad is unpromising, said a source in the payment market. He specified that banks from countries which imposed sanctions on Russian credit institutions do not service their cards regardless of the payment system.
RBC sent an inquiry to the credit institutions and UnionPay. The payment system continues to cooperate with those banks that have not been sanctioned, a source said.
The international payment systems Visa and Mastercard suspended their work in Russia on March 10. Because of this, their cardholders cannot pay by them abroad. Even earlier they had disabled their cards at the banks, which had fallen under sanctions. Because of this, Russian credit institutions began to consider the issue of UnionPay as an alternative to Visa and Mastercard. However, these cards will not be able to fully replace Visa and Mastercard, RBC wrote earlier, - their issue is much more expensive, and not all retail outlets will accept payment with such cards.
What are the risks
Sberbank, VTB, Alfa Bank, Sovcombank, Promsvyazbank and Otkrytie are under the toughest blocking sanctions of the USA. They are on the SDN list - this means blocking their assets related to the U.S. financial system, as well as the risk of secondary sanctions for cooperation with them.
UnionPay payment system "itself can determine which banks to work with and which not - here it retains the assessment of personal risks that may potentially arise, but not the fact that they will," says Dmitry Gorbunov, a partner of the law firm Rustam Kurmaev and Partners. UnionPay operates in the United States, and the payment system uses U.S. dollars in its transactions - these factors effectively extend U.S. sanctions to UnionPay, even though the system was created in China, adds Anton Imennov, managing partner of the Moscow office of the Pen & Paper law firm.
"If Russian banks with which UnionPay could cooperate are under Western sanctions, then in theory countries of the Western world may pay attention to the activities of the Chinese payment system, but not the fact that they can in any way influence in this situation on its activities directly, so, most likely, it may be sanctions of the so-called secondary order for interaction with legal entities from the sanctions list," admits Gorbunov. In theory, he said, they may try to limit the work of the Chinese payment system or prohibit Western companies to work with this payment system or with Chinese issuing banks, and this is already quite serious risks for UnionPay.
"There are examples when such European banks as Barclays and UniCredit were forced to enter into pre-trial agreements with OFAC (the sanctions department of the US Ministry of Finance. - RBC) to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in connection with dollar transactions involving sanctioned individuals. It is likely that after weighing the risks of doing business with a sanctioned person and the returns from access to the U.S. market, including U.S. currency, UnionPay decided to refrain from cooperating with the sanctioned banks," says Imennov.
“In any case, the functionality of UnionPay is inferior to Visa and Mastercard, for example, abroad they have a less developed acceptance network. Therefore, in order to completely bypass the restrictions, it is better for Russian citizens to open Visa and Mastercard cards in banks from the CIS countries, ”says Alma Obayeva, head of the board of the National Payment Council.
Now UnionPay cards are issued by Rosselkhozbank, Gazprombank, Bank St. Petersburg, Solidarity, Zenit, Post Bank, Primsotsbank, Primorye and Russian Standard. They are accepted in 180 countries.
Cards are still issued under a select number of banks as per the last sentence but they won’t be expanding it to sanctioned banks.
I assume this is specifically international transaction but does UnionPay use dollars as their transaction system domestically?