The Western Union payment system will refuse money transfers within Russia from April 1, 2022. The company sent a letter with a corresponding notification to partner banks. About this on Monday, February 7, writes RBC with a link to the document.
A representative of Western Union confirmed to the publication the company’s decision to refuse to conduct operations within Russia.
What is the reason?
As explained in the letter, the decision to abandon domestic transfers was made due to their low demand on the market. At the same time, cross-border transfers will be carried out as usual.
The company focuses on the development of the traditionally demanded service of international money transfers and continues to develop a multi-channel platform that allows Western Union partners to quickly and in compliance with all regulatory requirements to launch transfers abroad for their clients.
At the same time, the representative of the payment system did not answer the question of how much transfers were made through domestic Russian channels, since Western Union does not disclose such information.
What should clients do?
As follows from the letter, it will no longer be possible to send a transfer across Russia via Western Union on March 31, and on April 1, the opportunity to receive a payment or a refund will disappear. If the transfer was made before March 31, but has not yet been received by the addressee, then the sender will be able to return the money from April 1 at the offices of the Russian Post.
In addition, from March 24, Western Union will reduce the limit of internal transfers to five thousand rubles. Now, depending on various conditions, the maximum transfer amount per day varies from 50 thousand rubles to 7.5 thousand dollars (about 570 thousand rubles at the current exchange rate).
5000rubles
will increase the limit of internal transfer to Western Union from March 24
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Transfers abroad
In addition to the fact that Western Union will retain the ability for Russians to make cross-border transfers in the regular mode, they will be able to transfer money using Russian banks to the CIS countries by phone number. In October 2021, this feature was already introduced in Tinkoff. In 2022, other Russian banks will also be allowed to transfer money abroad by phone number: Unistream, DOM.RF and MKB. At the same time, now this function is available only to Sber customers.
The Central Bank emphasized that they are creating their own similar service based on the Fast Payment System (SBP). According to experts, millions of labor migrants transfer funds from Russia, and the market volume reaches billions of dollars. As noted in the press service of Sberbank, this method of transfer is becoming as popular with customers as transfers by phone number within Russia, since it requires no complicated details, funds are credited instantly.
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Transfer fees
In October last year, information appeared that Russian banks began to charge customers a commission for transferring funds to “foreign” debit cards. We are talking about the transfer of funds through the application of the issuing bank of the card, to which the money should be received. For this purpose, the applications of most credit institutions provide a special function. Until then, it was provided free of charge.
At the same time, according to the interviewed clients, banks in most cases do not warn about the introduction of a transfer fee. Its value is from 1.5 to two percent of the transfer amount, but also has a lower limit.
Experts suggested that the introduction of commissions is associated with the tightening of control of the Central Bank over money transfers of individuals (including as part of the fight against fraud) and the desire of the banks themselves to earn more on commissions.
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