By Hannah Lang
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Cross-border payments company Wise has suspended its money transfer service in Russia, following new sanctions over the weekend against the country in response to its invasion of Ukraine.
A spokesperson for the company said that Wise, which is based in London, will continue to monitor the situation and “keep these measures under constant review.”
Wise, a financial technology company previously known as TransferWise, holds balances in countries on popular currency routes to sidestep high fees traditionally associated with international money transfers.
Last week, Wise limited daily transfers to Russia to 200 British pounds ($268.34). A company spokesperson had said that the limits were put in place at the time “to make sure we can offer our service to as many people as possible.”
On Saturday, the United States and its allies announced they would take action against Russia’s central bank and bar some of the country’s banks from the SWIFT international payments system, in a move that experts saw as a significant escalation of the West’s sanctions against Moscow.
A spokesperson said Wise had suspended all money transfers to Russia as a result of those new restrictions.
Wise has also capped transfers to Ukraine, citing increasing difficulties operating its service in the country.
It added in a blog post that it plans to remove that cap as soon as it can, and said it had waived fees on more than 500,000 pounds of personal transfers to Ukraine “to help customers who may have emergency needs.”
Russia has called its actions in Ukraine a “special operation.”
($1 = 0.7453 pound)
(Reporting by Hannah Lang in Washington; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
