Private bank: card currency transactions to resume 'soon'

Since the end of December, Belarusians have not been able to transfer money from ruble cards to foreign currency ones. Even if they had a Viza or MasterCard, paying for services abroad became very unprofitable.

On Tuesday, January 16, Deputy Chairman of the Board of the National Bank, Syargei Dubkou, said that the problem will be solved.

However, the banker did not provide specifics when restrictions on the card trabsactions are removed. We then tried putting this question to the Office of Information and Public Relations of the National Bank. However, they were not available for the comment. Apparently, the communication channel there is as reliable as the rest of our financial system.

The next step was to contact the BSB Bank, Alfa-Bank and Bank BelVEB call centers pretending to be customers:

"Could you, please, tell me when it will be possible to transfer money from ruble cards to ones with foreign currency?"

All the three banks said that they currently had no information regarding this option. However, one of the call centers gave a more positive outlook:

"This service is not yet available, but in a short while, our bank plans to resume such operations. I cannot tell you the exact dates yet."

"In a short while- is it tomorrow, in a few days, in a week? Tell me at least approximately. "

"I cannot tell you what day or in how many days it will happen."