MOSCOW, September 2. /TASS/. China’s UnionPay has restricted the acquisition of cards issued in other countries in Russia, though the cards of Russian issuers continue operating, sources in credit organizations confirmed to TASS.
UnionPay has indeed restricted operations with Russian banks sanctioned by Western countries, sources told TASS, adding that the cards of the Chinese payment system issued by Russian lenders are operating normally.
Earlier, RBC reported citing sources in banks that China’s UnionPay had limited operations with Russian banks under sanctions. In particular, the servicing of the system’s cards issued by foreign lenders at payment terminals of sanctioned Russian banks was prohibited due to the possibility of secondary sanctions.
Meanwhile, as was reported earlier, Russian banks under sanctions will not be able to issue UnionPay cards as the payment system is afraid of cooperating with them due to the risk of secondary sanctions.
In March, the international payment systems, Visa and MasterCard, simultaneously decided to restrict operations in Russia due to the situation around Ukraine. UnionPay is the only international payment system, which continues working in the Russian Federation.
The global payment system UnionPay was founded in 2002. Its payment acceptance chain covers 180 countries and regions, among them are Switzerland, Greece, Italy, Spain, Germany, Mexico, Cyprus, Thailand, India, Israel, Portugal, Croatia, Poland, Serbia, Hungary, and Austria.