Last week we talked about India’s RuPay connecting to the sanctioned-Russian credit card network as a crimp in the G-7 sanctions. In our cross-practice review on the impact of Russian Sanctions on the Payments Ecosystem (May 2022), we talked about tour groups visiting local countries so that non-Russian cards could work for eligible Russians.
Here is a new twist that shows another creative solution for Russians who want to use their credit cards, and it involves UnionPay. More crimps to the sanctions, that is for sure.
YLE, a Scandinavian news source that reports on Finland, reports that Russian tourists can access Finnish. According to the article:
- Some ATM machines along Finland’s eastern border are currently being refilled at a rate of three or four times a week when previously, once a week was sufficient.
- However, some international credit and debit card companies do allow Russians to use their products when traveling outside of Russia. One such company is China’s UnionPay.
- As a consequence, ATM operators in Finland have noticed a significant increase in the use of the UnionPay card in Finnish machines located along the eastern border.
The big news here is not that there are workarounds for well-healed Russians. The big deal is that China and India, which collectively account for 37% of the world’s population, are filling needs once provided by the U.S. payment brands American Express, Discover, Mastercard, and Visa. The other networks might not have the cache of U.S. brands or their technical prowess, but these fledgling brands might soon create a global “us or them” for payment networks.
Overview by Brian Riley, Director, Credit Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group.
