The Emirates has become perhaps the main hub for the Russians to avoid Western sanctions, but they have failed here as well.
The Bank of the United Arab Emirates, which is one of the main anti-sanctions “hubs” of Russian business abroad, has sharply increased checks on payments by Russian companies. Now the money can take weeks to reach the recipient, or even get lost along the way. The Moscow Times reported this on Friday, December 13.
It is noted that this led to a new wave of American sanctions, affecting 50 banks, including the state-owned Gazprombank. The situation with payments due to the UAE, where more than 1.6 thousand Russian companies opened “subsidiaries” after the war, worsened in November, business representatives and lawyers said.
According to sources, the average payment processing time through banks in Dubai has increased from 1-3 days at the beginning of the year to two weeks, and in some cases up to 30 days. For some companies, money gets stuck and comes back, and sometimes gets lost along the way.
It is noted that most companies operating through the UAE are complaining about a significant deterioration in the situation. The new sanctions “forced banks to reconsider their interaction patterns and strengthen the verification of payments, especially through correspondent accounts.”
Russian businessmen complain that now half of payments through banks in the UAE are returned or take a long time to be transferred. In some areas, UAE credit institutions have completely stopped conducting transactions: these are, in particular, electronics, servers, IT services, and industrial equipment. Businessmen in the Russian Federation believe that if this situation continues, they will soon lose the opportunity to make payments through the UAE.
Business representatives noted that for Russian consumers, what is happening may result in the loss of goods from sale. If the payment problems are not resolved, there may be a shortage of imported goods in December.
It was previously reported that Google Play will block payments in Russian-related applications.
New Correspondent.net on Telegram and WhatsApp. Subscribe to our channels Athletistic and WhatsApp
Source: korrespondent
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.