Sberbank suspends settlements in Chinese yuan

Sberbank Since June 7, it has stopped making cross-border transfers of corporate clients in Chinese yuan, as well as transfers in this currency to other banks in Russia. This was told to a Vedomosti correspondent by an employee of a call center for legal entities. The operator could not name the reason for the termination of transfers in Chinese yuan.

A Sberbank representative confirmed the information, adding that it was a temporary suspension of payments. “This temporary measure affected corporate clients – participants in foreign economic activity, conducting settlements in Chinese yuan,” he said. Now the bank is working with Chinese partners to resolve the situation and restore settlements.

The operator named transfers in yuan to the Russian branch of the Bank of China using the SWIFT code as an exception – a unique identification code of the bank or other settlement participant, which is assigned to the organization when connecting to the SWIFT system and is used for transferring funds from one state to another between the participating banks of this systems.

Earlier, a screenshot appeared on Telegram channels with a message from Sberbank to one of the clients, which said that settlements under contracts for foreign economic activity (FEA) in Chinese yuan should be carried out in other banks, and also that this can be done without transferring contracts. Cross-border transfers in June were stopped “due to the policy of the correspondent bank,” Frank Media wrote.

From June 1, individuals can purchase Chinese yuan in cash, and therefore make transfers, the operator of the branch for individuals of the Sberbank call center told Vedomosti. She did not know about the restriction of cross-border payments and transfers.

June 6 Sberbank encountered difficulties in converting rupees into rubles, informed Archyde.com, citing a letter from the Indian company Indian Potash. In early February, the company opened a rupee account at a Sberbank branch in New Delhi and then made its first payment of 1.77 billion Indian rupees ($23 million). The next day, a representative of Sberbank refuted this information, noting that “the seller and the buyer are in the process of discussing the details of the settlements, which the bank cannot comment on, and there are no claims against the bank.

Citizens have already grown interested in the yuan, which they use to diversify their savings and invest part of their funds in financial instruments that are more reliable in terms of geopolitical risks, according to the latest Bank of Russia review on financial stability risks. According to the regulator, since the beginning of the crisis, individuals have purchased yuan on the exchange for a total of 27.3 billion rubles. Whereas in January 2022, citizens carried out single transactions with the yuan on the exchange.

Since March, many banks have noted the interest of business in June, for example, Rosbank, Promsvyazbank«FC Otkritie”, Moscow Credit Bank, etc. – they began to open deposits in Chinese currency and expanded the list of operations for legal entities.

At the end of March, the Chinese authorities did not rule out that they could switch to rubles and yuan in energy trade with Russia, TASS wrote.

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