Unsolicited: One of Turkey’s biggest banks is massively rejecting requests from Russians to open accounts | Business

“Out of ten requests to open an account, only one receives approval. It is impossible to open an account even with a residence permit and registration in Turkey,” explained one of the mediators, Sergey Ovsyannikov.

He added that now DenizBank makes exceptions only for customers with large deposits – 100 thousand. dollars and more, writes the Moscow Times, citing RBC.

Lenar Rachmanov, managing partner of Lenar Wealth Management, who works in Istanbul, confirmed the problem. According to him, the likelihood that a Russian will open an account depends on the “calibre of the client” and personal arrangements with a specific bank branch.

Out of ten requests to open an account, only one receives approval.

A residence permit and local registration do not guarantee opening an account at DenizBank, confirms another intermediary, Elena Chernysheva. She added that it will be easier for Russian citizens who have a complete package of necessary documents to apply to another bank.

Late last year, US President Joe Biden signed a decree imposing restrictions on foreign banks for helping Russian individuals and legal entities circumvent sanctions and for helping supply goods to Russia’s defense industry.

After this decree, a number of foreign credit institutions tightened their service conditions for Russians, and Russian citizens began to experience difficulties in making payments and transfers.

After Russia invaded Ukraine and Western countries imposed sanctions, some countries, including Turkey, began helping Moscow re-export goods. According to Financial Times sources, Russian intelligence agencies have devoted “a lot of effort and time” to finding ways to circumvent sanctions and export controls.

Kira Vinokurova, a partner at Pen&Paper, believes that the rejection of Russian requests to open accounts is caused by the risk to the banks that sanctions will be applied to them, since the access of Russian individuals to the global financial system can be seen as a contribution to the Russian financial sector. In addition, there is a growing risk that restrictive measures will be imposed for helping to circumvent anti-Russian sanctions.

“When opening an account for Russian persons, Turkish banks must devote additional resources to checking transactions – whether they do not involve persons subject to sanctions or activities prohibited from the point of view of Western sanctions,” says K. Vinokurova/

Due to the increasing pressure of sanctions, the requirements of Turkish banks to serve Russians will only become stricter in the future, but it is unlikely that Turkish banks will completely abandon new Russian clients, the lawyer is convinced.

In May of last year, Bank of Russia Deputy Chairman Alexei Guznov reported on the problems Russian banks face when trying to open accounts in “friendly” countries to conduct trade bypassing the dollar, euro and other global currencies. Earlier, the Central Bank of the Russian Federation said that foreign banks were not responding to their Russian counterparts’ proposals for partnership, and Chairman of the State Duma Financial Market Committee Anatoliy Aksakov said that only three credit institutions managed to open correspondent accounts.