Ways of sending and receiving money in Russia

The war conflict that erupted last Thursday is affecting us on more and more sides, even if we are not involved in the fighting. We have already reported on the situation of the banks several times in the last few days: you can read about the possible effects of the SWIFT embargo, the bank holiday imposed by the MNB, the deposit withdrawal limit on the blog, but we also wrote about what to expect for those who repay a loan at Sberbank.

Thanks to technology, banks and send money to Russia transfer providers (P2P) have made great strides in connecting Russians in the diaspora with their families back home.

Bank SWIFT transfers

If you’re thinking about how to translate money to Russia through payment systems, there’s particularly nothing to think about. After all, you should be in possession of just a pen, passport, surname and first name of the recipient’s address, and directly, themselves, the money you’re going to translate.

The financial messaging system (SPFS) is already operational and offers various services, one of which is the transfer of financial institutions. More than 18% of remittances in Russia go through the SPFS, and as of 1 November 2019, more than 390 participants, including Asian banks, have already joined the system.

Due to currency control processes, sending money to Russia through the banking system can be a real nightmare. The law requires financial institutions to have a correspondent account with the Central Bank of Russia to transfer funds into the country.

Because of these strict rules, transferring money through a bank can be costly and lead to cancellations, refunds and delays. Some of the main banks in Russia to look out for when transferring money are Sberbank, VTB Bank, Gazprombank and Alfa Bank JSC.

If you send money from Canada  to Russiayou will be charged £0 for online banking, but there is a £13 charge for payments between £0 and £2,600. Payments over £10,000 will be charged a £50 fee. If you send money through a branch you will be charged £25 or £40 if you use Priority Banking. This does not include any collection charges that you may have to pay. Transfers can only be made in pounds sterling, euros, US dollars.

Online money transfers

The most important factor for a bank transfer is the account number. Everything else can be copied from the official site of a particular beneficiary’s bank. If internet banking services are available in the availability of the services, you can also send money. If you want to do it all in person, you can go to the nearest bank branch for a passport and give the payment details to the operators.

Russian users are also good at using the “MoneyBookers” system. Using it is not so difficult. You just need your account in the system and the recipient’s e-mail address, which says that his account is registered in the same system.

As you can see, in practice everything is not so difficult. As far as preferences and statistics are concerned, most of the translations of our time are still carried out by tried and tested banking methods, although in recent years the transfer of money has been in virtual form.