On Friday, April 7, the Armenian Central Bank announced the restrictions imposed on money transfers by Russian customers. These measures have been taken in order to comply with the international sanctions announced against the Russian Federation and to combat parallel imports.
In the message from the Central Bank, it is noted that if the operation is assessed as “risky”, a refusal to transfer funds is possible. To carry out transactions, the Russian client will be asked to present documents proving the legal origin of the money, after which the transfer will be carried out.
In addition, Armenian banks find it difficult to authorize the opening of accounts for Russian companies, as they are afraid to use them to carry out substation transactions.
Recently, Western banks have tightened control over transactions related to sanctions measures against Moscow. This applies to credit institutions in a large number of countries, including Armenia. Previously, a similar control of import-export operations with the Russian Federation was announced in Kazakhstan.
According to sources, during the year, Russian citizens transferred about 63.7 billion dollars to personal accounts abroad. As a result, the amount of foreign currency held by residents of the country abroad for the first time exceeded that of the Russian Federation – 94 billion dollars against 57 billion dollars.
Photos used: Håkan Dahlström/wikimedia.org
