One of the largest banks in Hong Kong, HSBC, has sent a letter to its Russian clients to suspend the provision of retail investment services. This decision was made due to EU sanctions.
HSBC said it cannot provide investment services to Russian citizens who are not EU residents. The bank's measures will not affect customers' personal savings accounts and other personal services.
However, Russians who have lived in Hong Kong for a long time said that it is “nearly impossible” for Russian citizens to open a bank account there. “Although China and Hong Kong have not joined Western sanctions against Russia, there are cases when Russian businessmen cannot transfer funds or open new accounts,” Russian Consul General in Hong Kong Igor Sagitov confirmed.
Earlier, the Hong Kong authorities said they did not plan to support unilateral sanctions. At the same time, a sharp reduction in Russian capital is recorded in the region. In the first six months of 2022, according to the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, banks reduced the volume of their business with Russia by about 3.24 thousand times - from $330 billion to $100 million.
In September, it was reported that the service of Russian Mir cards in Uzbekistan was suspended. According to the UZCARD processing center, this was due to technical reasons.
Also, commercial banks in Turkey - DenizBank and Is Bankasi - stopped accepting Mir cards. Since September 28, the state-owned banks of the republic — Halkbank, VakifBank and Ziraat Bank — followed suit.
In early October, Turkey proposed replacing Mir with its own payment system, Troy. On October 14, the head of Rostourism, Zarina Doguzova, said that at present, issuing system cards for Russians is not yet available.
The government of Sri Lanka has refused to introduce Mir into its infrastructure. The Central Bank of the country fears the imposition of secondary sanctions by Western countries.
One of the largest banks in Kyrgyzstan, Companion, announced the termination of servicing Mir cards.
Meanwhile, a number of credit organizations in the Czech Republic and Spain have stopped servicing cards issued by Russian banks of the Chinese UnionPay payment system. UnionPay itself has previously limited the service of its cards, which were issued by foreign banks, in the terminals of Russian acquiring banks that fell under sanctions.
bbabo.Net