Since mid-July, Chinese banks have started refusing to accept payments if Russian names are indicated in payment documents, Alexei Poroshin, CEO of First Group, told Izvestia.
According to him, importers are now forced to prepare a full set of documents for transactions through third parties, so that no connection with Russia can be seen.
Russian names, including those that are not on the sanctions lists, any ties to Russia, as well as inscriptions in the Cyrillic alphabet become grounds for canceling the payment, confirmed Alexei Razumovsky, commercial director of Impaya Rus. According to him, Chinese partners are afraid of secondary sanctions and increasingly use “zero trust” in relations with Russian business, trying to exclude any threat.
The Izvestia interlocutor in one of the business associations noted that the problem emerged a few weeks ago and so far such cases are not widespread.
If a Russian name is given to a citizen of another country, Chinese banks request additional information, in particular, they check the connection with Russian companies, says Alexei Tarapovsky, founder of Anderida Financial Group. If the connection is not confirmed, the payment goes through, he said.
The situation with payments from Russia to China deteriorated sharply in December 2023, when U.S. President Joe Biden signed a decree on secondary sanctions, including against foreign banks, for assistance with transactions with under-sanctioned persons and with supplies to the Russian defense industry. After that, major Chinese banks stopped accepting payments from Russia, even in yuan. Smaller regional banks joined them in July and August this year. Thus, more than 98% of Chinese credit organizations currently do not accept payments from Russian companies.
At the end of August, it became known that transactions worth tens of billions of yuan were suspended between Russia and China due to difficulties with settlements. At the same time, as the Reuters interlocutor noted, this issue does not cause serious concern for the Russian leadership, as “payments in priority areas continue to go smoothly.
At the same time, according to the agency, Russia and China may switch to barter trade to circumvent sanctions. According to Reuters sources, such deals in agriculture will take place as early as this fall. However, as Oleg Abelev, head of the analytical department of Rikom-Trust Investment Company, noted, not all types of products can be exchanged by barter. Russia may also begin to settle accounts with China with the help of cryptocurrency.
