YEREVAN, March 6. /ARKA/. After “Migom” Russian money transfer system has collapsed, banks of CIS countries doubt reliability of their Russian partners. A major Uzbek bank, Uzpromstroybank has sent letters to nine major payment systems requesting them to open an insurance deposit or provide a bank guarantee, RBC reports.
Over 23 billion dollars is transferred from Russia abroad, half o the amount to Middle Asia, where guarantees to local banks may total hundreds of million dollars.
“Migom” money transfer system was run by Eurotrust bank that was deprived of its license in early February this year. The collapse of the system has had negative effects on other money transfer systems as well. Losses suffered by foreign banks partnering with “Migom” may reach 50 million rubles.
Unistream money transfer system said they had received a similar letter from Uzbek partners as well.
Another money transfer system, “Zolotaya Korona” told RBC banks from Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine are the most concerned ones. Some are sending letters, other are negotiations to protect themselves against instability in the Russian market.
Ukrainian Privatbank has confirmed it is currently negotiating with Russian banks over guarantees.
The chain of license revocations in Russia is making the situation even worse, and the banks are thoroughly reconsidering their relations with payment systems, a representative of “Zolotaya Korona” system said.
He also said concerns of foreign banks will hardly affect operations of major Russian transfer systems (according to some estimates, Zolotaya Korona accounts for about 60% of money transfers, Contact and Western union for 20% each, followed by Unistream and Leader). But other systems having transfers as an additional business may get difficulties, he said.
According to Bank of Russia, individual money transfers from Russia through various systems amounted 23.6 billion dollars in 2013, of it 20.8 billion dollars to CIS countries. According to money transfer systems, half of all transfers to CIS is made to Uzbakistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.–0–
