Media reported about the restriction of Gazprombank's UnionPay cards in a number of countries

Gazprombank's UnionPay cards have been restricted in some countries. This was reported by a number of media outlets on November 23.

It is specified that at the moment we are talking about Argentina, Italy, Germany, South Africa, Vietnam, Turkey, Hungary, Egypt, South Korea, Uzbekistan, Thailand, UAE, Tunisia and Kazakhstan.

As reported by customers of the credit organization, ATMs do not allow cash withdrawals and other transactions on Gazprombank cards. In some cases, the screen of a Unicredit ATM that supported the Unionpay system displays a message stating that there is no connection with the bank.

In addition, the offer to issue such debit cards disappeared from the bank's website.

Restrictive examples: what the new US sanctions against Gazprombank mean

Restrictions on a number of other players and top management of the Central Bank will not affect the economy in any way - the market has already adapted to the new reality

Gazprombank was included in the U.S. sanctions list on November 21. Investor Denis Astafiev explained that the bank was not included there for a long time, because it was important for the payment of energy supplies to Europe. The payments were made on an exceptional basis to ensure the stability of European energy. The step will damage the European economy to a greater extent than the Russian economy, the expert said.

Later, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia was working on retaliatory measures to the U.S. sanctions against Gazprombank.

At the same time, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said that such a decision of the United States threatens the energy security of Central Europe, and Washington deliberately does so. The diplomat noted that Hungary considers any attempts to jeopardize the security of its energy sector as an infringement of its sovereignty. According to Szijjártó, the Hungarian government is working to solve the problem together with its partners. This situation will be discussed today in Istanbul with the energy ministers of Turkey, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria and Serbia, as well as ongoing consultations with Slovak partners, the minister said.

In October, the head of Gazprom Alexei Miller called the situation on the European gas market bad and agreed with the assessment that the demand for energy resources there are destroyed purposefully. Later that month, the U.S. temporarily authorized energy deals with a number of Russian banks. The Kremlin pointed out that Washington was acting pragmatically for the sake of its own economic interests.