Russian Banks And Their Restrictions In Business Services

Currency Accounts Of Legal Entities And Individual Entrepreneurs

PSB suspended the service of legal entities and individual entrepreneurs in foreign currencies. All settlements and payments in rubles proceed as usual. The company plans to transfer servicing under foreign exchange contracts to a partner bank with the preservation of tariffs, services, and individual conditions and “with a minimum package of documents.” The manager will communicate information about the partner bank will be transmitted to customers by the manager “shortly.”

PSB advised corporate clients and individual entrepreneurs:

• Inform counterparties not to transfer foreign currencies to the client’s bank accounts at PSB.
• If counterparties have already sent money, promptly revoke the transfer order.

Bank for Entrepreneurs “Tochka” is a “daughter” of the bank “Otkritie” – also faced restrictions:

• Payments in dollars and euros have not been sent abroad and have not been received by Tochka since February 25.
• A correspondent bank can return currency transfers in rubles to Kazakhstan, Belarus, and other countries.
• When working with foreign sites, for example, Upwork, you cannot withdraw income from the site in foreign currency – withdrawal in rubles is available in the usual mode.
• Points cards are likely to be disconnected from Apple Pay and Google Pay.

It will not be possible to withdraw foreign currency in cash from Tochka cards in Russia. According to the current legislation, legal entities and individual entrepreneurs are prohibited. The bank recommends starting dollars and euros abroad or transferring them to other banks: for example, to Alfa-Bank, Tinkoff, Sberbank, VTB, and Gazprombank – Tochka set up direct interaction with them, and also canceled the commission for currency transfers to their accounts in Russian banks.

• An individual entrepreneur can transfer money to the account of an individual or individual entrepreneur in another bank.
• Legal entity – from its current or transit account to its foreign currency account in another bank

Also, Tochka offered its clients – legal entities and individual entrepreneurs – to temporarily open a foreign currency account in a bank that is not under sanctions. To transfer a currency contract from Tochka to another bank:

• You need to send a statement with a unique contract number to the chat with Tochka.
• To transfer a contract not registered at Tochka, you need to report to the new bank the total amount that passed through it at Tochka and provide the basis for the agreement or contract.

At the same time, you can use all services, for example, accounting for individual entrepreneurs, in the same way as before. For personal accounting to be done correctly, customers need to regularly upload statements from other banks in 1C format to the Online Accounting section. You will need to add operations manually through the button in the same area in the free version.

It is possible to make an urgent payment under a foreign exchange contract abroad, for example, to a foreign employee or counterparty, through another legal entity. To do this, you need to draw up an agreement on the partial assignment of the right to claim, they explained in Tochka:

• The contract must describe to whom, how much, and under what contract another legal entity can pay and transfer a unique contract number with Tochka and a copy of the main agreement with a non-resident.
• Another legal entity will transfer the documents to its bank and make the payment. The bank must provide information about the amount completed, indicating the unique contract number. The Tochka client must send this information to their bank via chat within 15 working days of the month following the payment.

The rest of the banks did not comment on the work with the business.

Restrictions For Sberbank

There are no restrictions for bank customers yet. So far, Sberbank is studying what conditions will affect its work with foreign correspondent accounts at the end of March.

However, currency transfers to a client located abroad may take longer due to additional verification on the side of counterparties, Sberbank warned.

Exchange and withdrawal of currency, payment via ApplePay, GooglePay, and Samsung Pay, operations with Russian and foreign stocks work as before.

Restrictions For Other Banks From The Sanctions List

The restrictions listed above will not affect the cards of Alfa-Bank, Gazprombank, Rosselkhozbank, and Moscow Credit Bank. With the help of sanctions, these organizations were prohibited only from raising capital in the United States.

Alfa-Bank explains that it will temporarily not issue new Eurobonds or place share issues. “But Alfa-Bank is a non-public company, so restrictions on the issue of shares do not apply to the company,” the bank said.

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