Retail customers: HSBC stops processing Russia payments

LONDON: HSBC has stopped processing all payments from Russia or Belarus for personal banking customers, the bank said on Friday,

A message posted on the bank’s British retail banking website to its customers said the lender has “made the decision to stop processing payments” from the two countries, and to make alternative arrangements for any such transaction.

The decision to end personal banking payments follows the British lender’s exit from business banking in the country, when it finalised the sale of its entity there in May, two years after its initial announcement of the exit in June 2022.

Banks worldwide have withdrawn from Russia following its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and subsequent financial sanctions imposed on Russia by the US and other countries.

Washington on Friday imposed new sanctions on Russia’s Gazprombank, preventing the state-controlled lender from handling any new energy-related transactions that touch the US financial system.

US President-elect Donald Trump, who is sceptical of US support for Ukraine, could remove the sanctions when he takes office.

HSBC among European banks is particularly sensitive to US authorities’ supervision, having paid out more than $2 billion in fines and civil penalties in the US for lapses in anti money-laundering controls at its Mexican unit.