YEREVAN, October 10. / ARKA /. The leadership of Russian Zolotaya Korona (Golden Crown) international money transfer system refused to comment on a ruling by the Armenian Central Bank terminating its operation license in Armenia.
“Our leadership has decided to not comment on the decision of Armenia’s Central Bank,’ Zolotaya Korona said in response to an ARKA question to comment the decision.
On October 8 the Central Bank of Armenia said it had withdrawn the license awarded to Russian Zolotaya Korona money transfer system. It said a study had found out that Zolotaya Korona repeatedly restricted the access of some branches of several Armenia-based banks to its remittances system
The Central Bank said it had sent a letter to Zolotaya Korona to notify it about this problem offering to fix it immediately. It was also warned against possible consequences if it failed to fix the problem.
“Such actions of the operator threaten the stability of the financial system, and / or the level of liquidity and / or solvency of its participants”, the Central Bank of Armenia said in a statement.
In view of this, as well as proceeding from the law “On the payment and settlement systems and payment and settlement organizations,” the Central Bank of Armenia decided to revoke the permission awarded to Zolotaya Korona to operate in the territory of Armenia, the bank said.
In Armenia Zolotaya Korona implemented money transfers via seven partner banks through 260 points across the country.
Zolotaya Korona is an instant money transfer system without the need to open an account, which has more than 24.5 thousand points in Russia and other CIS countries (including more than 1.8 thousand offices in Moscow.) The system includes more than 300 banks in Russia and the CIS and major Russian mobile retailers. Earlier, in September of this year, for similar reasons, the Central Bank of Armenia had revoked a license awarded to another Russian money transfer system Migom.
According to the Central Bank, a total of 148 billion drams were remitted to Armenia via banks in the second quarter of the year
According to Russian Bankir.ru, in 2011 some $1.28 billion were remitted to Armeniathrough various international payment systems and some $550 million in the first half of 2012. -0-
