The accounts of dozens of Russian citizens at the Georgian bank Bank of Georgia were forcibly closed without any explanation. This was reported by the Telegram channel Paper Kartuli. A representative of the bank confirmed this information to the newspaper Kommersant.
“A kind of regularity also cannot be defined: they block cards used on the territory of Georgia, abroad, for business and personal accounts,” says the Telegram channel.
In addition, Belarusian citizens received messages that their accounts were closed.
A Kommersant source said the closure of some accounts affected some of the BoG’s customers “regardless of the citizenry”. Another newspaper source said the Russians will be able to open an account with the BoG “when the time comes”.
The closing process will take two to five business days. During this period, people can withdraw money to another bank account or withdraw money from an ATM. The representative of the bank refused to explain the reason for the blocking of accounts, referring to the “internal policy” of the credit institution and the order of the Central Bank of Georgia – accordingly, commercial banks have the right not to explain to the client, closing his account.
Telegram channel “Agency. Novosti reported that Russians whose accounts were closed used them for a while. One of the channel’s interlocutors opened an account at BoG in 2018, when he entered the university.
Bank of Georgia is the largest commercial bank in Georgia. After the start of the special military operation of the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine, this bank asked Russians who wanted to open an account there to fill out a questionnaire in which the applicant had to recognize the territorial integrity of Georgia and Ukraine and condemn Ukraine’s actions. Russian authorities. BoG gave up on this application, which caused a great scandal in the media and social networks, in a short time. Other Georgian banks did not offer such surveys to their customers.
Paper Kartuli reports that most of the blocked accounts “have low turnover and are not cryptocurrency.”
According to RIA Novosti, the blocking of Russians’ accounts is not related to their citizenship. BoG told the agency that the account is usually closed “in case of violations of the bank’s internal policy and suspicious transactions”.
Since February 24, more than 45,000 Russian citizens have opened accounts in Georgian banks. By the end of summer 2022, more than 60,000 Russians had Georgian accounts. Georgia’s national currency, the lari, gained 16% as Russian funds flowed into Georgian banks.
Georgia has not imposed unilateral sanctions against the Russian Federation, but complies with the financial restrictions of Western countries.
In October, the National Bank of Georgia announced that it had transferred $1,135 billion, or 70.8 billion rubles, from Russia to Georgia in the first nine months of 2022. This figure was four times higher than in the same period in 2021.
The Russian Federation became the leader in money transfers to the republic. In September, the volume of transfers increased by 350% – this was due to the mobilization in Russia. Thousands of Russian citizens left the country, including Georgia.
At the same time, the demand for sending funds to Georgia increased the most since the beginning of the year in May – after which the Russians transferred $ 505.7 million to the country.