Chinese banks have stopped making payments in dollars with Russia

Many Chinese banks refused to make payments in dollars with Russian companies after new sanctions against the Russian Federation in December 2023. At the same time, transactions in rubles and yuan are still underway. Participants of the payment market told Izvestia about this. Previously, the media wrote only about stricter checks. However, the control has really been strengthened. Chinese state-owned companies even began to ask to send payments from third parties unrelated to the Russian Federation.

According to one of the sources, the new restrictions are related to the fear of Chinese banks due to the possible introduction of secondary sanctions. The fact is that all payments in dollars are made through correspondent accounts opened in American banks, regardless of the recipient’s and sender’s country, so they are easily tracked.

Oleg Abelev, head of the analytical department of IC Rikom-Trust, also confirmed to the publication that many Chinese banks stopped accepting payments in dollars from Russian companies in December last year.

At the same time, Chinese credit institutions are still interested in settlements in national currencies. Now payments in rubles and yuan are carried out in the usual format, sources of Izvestia said.

This week, Bloomberg reported that state-owned Chinese banks began to tighten restrictions on financing Russian clients after the United States passed a law on secondary sanctions against foreign financial firms working with sanctioned individuals from the Russian Federation.