The bank said in a statement that it had “decided to stop processing payments” from Russia and Belarus, and advised customers to seek alternative options for conducting transactions.
Reuters writes that the bank’s decision was a continuation of its withdrawal from the Russian market after the sale of its Russian business in May 2024.
One of the reasons for the departure of most banks from Russia, as the agency notes, was the sanctions imposed by the United States and other countries after February 2022. HSBC is among European banks “particularly sensitive” to US scrutiny after paying $2 billion in fines over money laundering controls at its Mexico unit.
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St. Petersburg European Bank – this is how the abbreviation SEB could stand for, since its Russian subsidiary continues to operate and make a profit, although a year ago the management said that it was curtailing its activities.
Raiffeisen Bank, which has vowed to leave Russia, recently posted dozens of job advertisements outlining ambitious growth plans and attracting new clients, the Financial Times has found.
When the ability to use the fiat banking system is taken away from those who launder Russian money, they try to be reborn in cryptocurrency. Moreover, various fintechs are also used – in particular, people involved in the Magnitsky case opened accounts in various Caribbean banks, which, in turn, turned out to be clients of fintech companies in the Baltic countries, says Vadim Kleiner, partner at Hermitage Capital Management, in an interview with DV.
Swedbank is responsible for making the war in Ukraine possible, says Swedish journalist Axel Gord Humlesjö. He recently published a book about how the Russian intelligence service FSB monitored what was happening in the largest Scandinavian bank. The FSB also monitored the journalist himself.
Many Estonian companies circumvented the sanctions imposed on Russia and continued to supply the Putin regime with goods or money. This was probably facilitated by financial institutions in Germany and Luxembourg, according to research carried out as a thesis at the Estonian Academy of Internal Security (Sisekaitseakadeemia).
Source: www.dv.ee
