The United States has closed one of the last channels for withdrawing money from Russia: foreign banks are refusing to work with the Russian Unistream system. At the end of last week, the bank that operates the system came under US blocking sanctions.
At least three Georgian banks have suspended transfers abroad through Unistream, which before the war provided up to 40% of such transactions and was one of the market leaders along with Zolotaya Korona, Interfax reports.
TBC bank stopped working with Unistream on Friday, July 21, explaining the situation with "technical reasons". On Monday, it was followed by Bank of Georgia and Liberty Bank, the two largest banks in Georgia by assets.
In Armenia, 4 out of 18 banks refused to work with Unistream.
In Kazakhstan, the state postal operator Kazpost stopped receiving and sending money through Unistream. "Transfers have been stopped since July 21," the call center said, without specifying the reasons.
In Uzbekistan, Ipoteka Bank, Kapitalbank and Hulk Bank have also refused to work with Unistream. The latter severed relations with all Russian payment systems: "Unistream, Contact and Zolota Korona. The decision was made "in connection with the growing number of dubious transactions, as well as transactions that do not correspond to transfers for personal purposes," the bank said.
In Kyrgyzstan, six banks have announced restrictions on working with Unistream, noting that the reason is sanctions.
"Unistream faced problems after Unistream Bank was included in the SDN-list by the US Treasury Department. Starting from October 18, legal entities and US citizens will be prohibited from conducting any transactions with the bank, which is among the second hundred in Russia in terms of assets.