Russian banks under sanctions will not be able to issue UnionPay cards

According to RBC, large Russian banks, which are under blocking sanctions from Western countries, will not be able to issue UnionPay cards. The Chinese payment system is afraid to cooperate with them because of the risk of secondary sanctions.This was told immediately by five sources in large banks, including those that fell under sanctions. This decision of the Chinese payment system was announced at a closed meeting, so Sberbank will not issue these cards. The possibility of issuing a UnionPay card was also considered by Alfa-Bank, Otkritie, and VTB.
Three sources claim that banks will not be able to issue UnionPay cards due to concerns of the payment system itself. Two more sources say that UnionPay put the negotiations on pause without explanation: “The project is temporarily on pause, they do not officially confirm the connection with the sanctions, they say that it is on pause until further notice.”

Sovcombank also wanted to start issuing a Halva card based on UnionPay, but the idea was abandoned, because the use of any cards of sanctioned banks abroad is futile. Banks from countries that have imposed sanctions on Russian banks do not service their cards, regardless of the payment system. UnionPay continues to cooperate with banks that have not been sanctioned. Earlier, Visa and Mastercard suspended their work in Russia due to a special operation in Ukraine.