In Finland, on October 3, the Nosto ATM network, the only one in the country that worked with the Chinese payment system, stopped accepting UnionPay cards, as RIA Novosti reported with reference to Risto Lepo, a representative of Nokas CMS, which owns ATMs. He explained the decision by the increased demand for cash from the Russians.
There are only two ATM networks operating in Finland: Otto and Nosto. The Chinese UnionPay has been cooperating with Nosto since June 2020. However, Nokas CMS “has reached an agreement with partners and directly with UnionPay” that from October 3, Nosto ATMs will stop servicing cards of the Chinese service.
“In recent weeks, Russians have been emptying ATMs on the eastern border of Finland, and especially in southeastern Finland, in a matter of hours. We just didn’t have time to replenish them with cash. In the worst case, the amount of cash withdrawn was so large that it could not be private Russian tourists shopping in Finland,” Lepo claimed.
As noted, 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 such as Visa, Mastercard, and Amercian Express.
In September, it also became known that banks in several countries refused to service Russian cards “Mir” due to the threat of secondary sanctions from the US. Those countries were located in Turkey, Armenia, Kazakhstan, and Vietnam.
In September, the Finnish Embassy in Moscow threatened Russian vacationers with the cancellation of tourist visas in the absence of prerequisites for entry into the country.
Restrictions on the entry of Russians to Finland will have a negative impact on the country’s economy, the foreign policy adviser of the Finnish National Coalition Party, Henry Vanhanen, told the “Izvestia” newspaper.
According to him, the reduction in the tourist flow from Russia will primarily affect economic activity in the border regions of the republic. At the same time, he claimed that polls conducted in the country reportedly show that the majority of Finns are ready for further tightening of economic sanctions against Russia, despite the rising cost of living and economic losses.
Ru-Main, 03.10.2022
Source: Lenta
