Austrian Raiffeisen stops cooperation with Belarusian banks in August - media
Nasha Niva reported this, citing sources, Ukrinform says.
According to sources, the Austrian Raiffeisen Bank has informed the management of Belarusian banks that it will cease cooperation with all banks in the Belarusian jurisdiction as of July 31.
As a result of sanctions for internal repression and the Belarusian regime's involvement in Russia's war against Ukraine, the Belarusian financial sector has been severely limited in its ability to communicate with the outside world. Raiffeisen remained the last bank to correspond to Belarusian banks when sending payments to and receiving payments from Europe, the newspaper writes.
According to local businesspeople, Priorbank, the Belarusian subsidiary of Raiffeisen, has started sending letters to customers asking them not to specify the correspondent bank for payments, otherwise they will not be delivered.
It is likely that the refusal to have correspondent relations with Belarusian banks is a consequence of U.S. pressure on European financial institutions that continued to work with Russians and Belarusians despite the common sanctions policy.
Earlier, the newspaper's interlocutors reported that the U.S. authorities had requested all the documentation on the transactions carried out by the Belarusian and Russian subsidiaries from Raiffeisen Austria. In case of refusal to provide the documentation or in case of detection of the facts of prohibited payments, the Austrian bank was threatened with sanctions (a ban on working with the dollar).
A correspondent account is a bank account opened by one bank with another bank for the purpose of performing financial transactions between them, such as transferring funds, crediting payments, buying and selling currency, etc. A correspondent account can be opened in one currency or in several currencies, depending on the bank's needs.
