On September 2, 2022, it became known that the world’s largest Chinese payment system UnionPay has limited work with Russian acquirer banks against which sanctions were imposed due to the war in Ukraine.
Source: Representative of the bank
It is noted that UnionPay has banned the service of its cards issued by foreign banks in their POS terminals.
“Yes, it is true that the Chinese payment system UnionPay, on its initiative, limited partnerships with sanctioned banks both in terms of acquiring and issuing. In particular, the acceptance of foreign UnionPay cards was disabled only by verbal notification.”
Such a decision could be made due to the risk of secondary sanctions. Earlier, it was known, that UnionPay refused to cooperate with Russia’s biggest lender, state-owned Sberbank and suspended talks with other banks for fear of incurring secondary sanctions.
Russians who have UnionPay cards from Russian banks reported difficulties making payments in the US, Israel, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
On March 17, the National Bank of Ukraine appealed to the Chinese payment systems China UnionPay and UnionPay International to withdraw from the payment market of the Russian Federation. In particular, the NBU called to stop all operations with China UnionPay and UnionPay International payment cards both on the territory of the Russian Federation and those issued by banks from the Russian Federation outside its borders.
Uaposition memo: China has not joined Western sanctions against Russia over its war in Ukraine and has refused to criticize Moscow.
See also: China will send its troops to Russia for joint training
