YEREVAN, July 25. /ARKA/. The central banks of many former Soviet republics saw a surge in remittances from Russia in April and May of 2022, according to a Russian business daily Kommersant.
For example, Armenia set an all-time record in May with $266 million being remitted from Russia, up from $115 million remitted in March.
It says the previous record of money transfers from Russia to Armenia was recorded in July 2013 when $194 million were remitted.
Georgia also set a historical record – the amount of remittances from Russia increased from $27 million (14% of all remittances) in March to $313 million in May (62%). In June, the flow has dropped to $231 million (54%), but it is still several times higher than last year.
In Kazakhstan, remittances from Russia in March accounted for 17.8% of all money transfers or $9.5 million, but in May the flow rose to 66% of the total or $94.6 million.
Money transfers to Kyrgyzstan increased from $139.6 million (91%) in March to $245.6 million (95.5%) in May.
Remittances from Russia to Uzbekistan in the first half of the year accounted for 3.1% of all transfers, or about $200 million in equivalent.
Experts note differences in what motivates Russian citizens to make money transfers from Russia to Central Asia and the South Caucasus.
“The trend is related to the relocation of Russians and their money to Armenia and Georgia, and simply to the withdrawal of funds to safer jurisdictions without relocation – to Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, including money transfers to refill international cards opened there by Russians,” said Roman Prokhorov, the head of the Financial Innovations Association.
Many Russians personally or through intermediaries opened accounts and received cards of international payment systems in former Soviet republics’ banks. In addition, since the first days of the conflict in Ukraine, specialized associations, especially IT professionals, began relocating to Georgia, Armenia, the Baltic States and Cyprus.
Estimates of the scale of emigration of Russians abroad triggered by the events in Ukraine vary from tens to hundreds of thousands or even millions.
The Unistream money transfer system notes that the volume of money transfers via their service to the neighboring countries increased 5.3 times in June-July:
“The number of money transfers exceeded 1.23 million; most of all money transfers from Russia were sent to Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.”
The amount of private money transfers sent to Armenia from abroad increased by about $155 million or 38.2% in the first quarter of 2022 compared to the same time span of 2021 to $561 million, according to the Union of Banks of Armenia (UBA).
The bulk of money transfers – $239 million- was sent from the Russian Federation, which was followed by the United States with $143 million and France with $17 million. -0-
