UAE’s Wio Bank has stopped accepting transfers in Russian dirhams

Wio’s financial advisors and clients gave details in an interview with RBC. It should be noted that there are quite a few banks that open accounts for Russians in the UAE, and even an Emirates ID (analogous to a residence permit) does not help in this.

Lenar Rakhmanov, managing partner of Lenar Wealth Management, said that these problems began in June. According to him, for now the bank applies selective bans and makes exceptions for clients with very large amounts in Wio.

One of the clients reported that the bank rejected his money transfer in dirhams from the Russian bank BCS. Another person wanted to send funds from Kazakhstan, but Wio rejected the operation and did not return the money to his account. Support says that the credit denials are related to the bank’s internal policies.

The founder of the OhMySwift consulting service, Andrey Avramenko, says that quite a few banks work with dirhams in Russia, and if the policy of banning the acceptance of funds from the Russian Federation affects all UAE banks, then there will be no way to send a transfer to this country. He notes that Wio proved attractive to clients from the Russian Federation due to the possibility of opening accounts online, issuing multi-currency cards, offering deposits at high interest rates, and having access to the stock market. The bank’s team includes people from Russian fintechs.

We previously wrote that the volume of money transfers from Russia to Georgia decreased by 3.5 times in 2024, and in May 2022, record figures were recorded, when about $314 million was transferred from Russia.