Russia’s largest lender Sberbank appears to have found a workaround to Western sanctions and SWIFT bans by enabling wire transfers to European banks through third-party intermediaries, the independent news outlet The Bell reported Friday.
Sberbank and other major Russian banks were cut off from the SWIFT financial messaging system after Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, severely limiting their ability to process international payments.
According to The Bell, which tested the workaround itself and spoke to others who have also successfully transferred money, Sberbank customers can send rubles via its mobile app to European cardholders at Revolut or N26.
The money is routed through a non-sanctioned intermediary, converted into cryptocurrency and transferred to a second intermediary who deposits euros into the recipient’s Revolut or N26 account.
Recipients reportedly see a sender name unrelated to Sberbank — often a payment processor, a city in Central Asia or an individual.
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Enabling a mass exodus of money from the Russian economy? I’m a little surprised the Kremlin is okay with that XD
I remember the start of the war when they froze ruble sales to stop its crash…