OREANDA-NEWS  The Chinese payment system UnionPay has restricted cash withdrawals abroad from cards issued by any Russian banks, the Primorye credit organization said on its website. The decision applies to all Russian issuers.

For Russian cardholders, there is a limit on cash withdrawals at the level of 50 thousand yuan (about 500 thousand rubles) per day and no more than 500 thousand yuan per year. The restriction also applies to the equivalents of these amounts in other currencies. Primorye Bank recommended its customers to issue an additional UnionPay card if they need to receive cash in excess of the established limit.

The official website of the payment system informs that in Russia UnionPay cards are issued by Russian Standard, MTS-Bank, Rosselkhoznadzor, Gazprombank, Solidarity, St. Petersburg, Primsotsbank, Primorye, EBRD, Zenit and Post Bank.

Russians began to switch massively to UnionPay cards after the beginning of the Ukrainian conflict and the subsequent withdrawal from Russia of the international payment systems Visa, Mastercard, Amercian Express. In autumn, a number of European countries stopped accepting Chinese PS cards due to increased demand for cash from Russian citizens.

For example, Czech KB Bank, Spanish banks Euronet and Santander, as well as the Finnish ATM network Nosto arrived in October. In November, the French bank LLC refused to service UnionPay cards from the Russian Gazprombank.