Some European banks are no longer working with Chinese UnionPay cards. Izvestia reports that Russian customers also face problems when servicing their cards.

In particular, Czech KB Bank's ATMs no longer accept UnionPay cards. The bank representative said that a week or two ago, the “plastic” of the Chinese payment system was serviced, but now it is not, specifying that it refers to UnionPay cards in general, irrespective of the country of issue.

There are also massive complaints that UnionPay cards are not accepted in a number of ATMs in Spain. Problems mostly arose with Euronet, Kutxabank and ING ATMs, both with UnionPay “plastic” of Russian sanctioned banks, and those that did not fall under restrictions.

Spanish ATM network Euronet confirmed that cards issued by certain issuing banks have been blocked and will not be accepted at the company’s ATM in accordance with the rules of international payment systems and US and EU regulators. They specified that the restrictions affected Russian and Belarusian credit institutions, but did not provide an exact list.



In addition, customers share information from the Bulgarian DSK Bank, according to which, the bank will stop working with UnionPay from October 26. The bank said that they cannot provide final information yet as negotiations between the bank and UnionPay are still underway.

Chinese payment system cards were not accepted in Nosto ATMs in Finland from October 3. This decision is agreed with the influx of Russian tourists who “empty ATMs within a few hours”, withdrawing money from UnionPay credit cards.

Experts note that the decisions of European financial institutions are politically and technically motivated. Nevertheless, in their opinion, it is unlikely that banks will completely terminate their partnership with the Chinese payment system.

To date, about 3.5 billion cards have been issued in the UnionPay system. Of these, only about 100 million are international.

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