30 июля 2024 — 10:15
The Chinese side returns about 80% of payments in yuan back to the Russian Federation. Direct transfers are getting worse — customers have to resort to intermediaries and charge additional fees. Kommersant writes about this with reference to sources.
The first problems, according to them, began in December 2023, when the decree of the US president on secondary sanctions was issued. Then everything "went on the rise" - another aggravation occurred after the introduction of American sanctions against the Moscow Stock Exchange in early June.
One of the interlocutors of the publication said that against this background, Chinese partners are becoming more demanding, in particular, requesting more and more documents.
In addition, transfers on the Chinese side may take several weeks before a decision is made whether to make a payment or not. Later, the transfer can be canceled without announcing the reasons, as a result, the client "will take all the commission, but the payment will not be executed." Often, money just hangs on correspondent accounts for 30-40 days and comes back.
Sometimes a Chinese supplier cannot receive their money for five to six months, although the goods have already been sold and brought to Russia. With good relations with the customer, the supplier continues to deliver the goods on a postpaid basis.
"Clients have to resort to the services of intermediaries — payment agents or "trading houses". In the first case, agents are responsible only for payment services, in the second — we are talking about the fact that such houses are entrusted not only with the transfer of payment, but also with the function of movement of goods," said Oleg Ushakov, Founder of Sagrada Legal.
According to a Kommersant source, payment agents account for about 30% of payments. Using an intermediary entails an increase in the cost of the transaction, customers need to pay an additional commission. On average, the commission is 3-5%, but it can reach 8-10%.
Earlier, Vedomosti reported that Chinese banks, against the background of sanctions, began to secretly divide the yuan into "dirty" and "clean" related to Russia. Journalists confirmed that there were cases when banks refused to accept currency with a Russian trace. At the same time, they cannot find out where the yuan was bought, so they refrain from working with money that comes from Russian banks or is linked to Russia according to documents.