The Chinese payment system UnionPay has limited work with Russian acquiring banks that are under Western sanctions. RBC writes about this, citing three sources in the banking sector.

Now Russian POS-terminals of sanctioned banks do not accept UnionPay cards issued abroad. One of RBC's sources said that the company could do this because of the fear of secondary sanctions.

After Visa and MasterCard left Russia, UnionPay remained the only international payment system that continues to operate on its territory. The company did not announce the termination of cooperation with sanctioned banks, but in the spring it banned them from issuing their cards.

Among the Russian acquiring banks that fell under Western sanctions are Sberbank, VTB, Alfa-Bank and Promsvyazbank, the largest in Europe.

Before Russia's war against Ukraine (and, accordingly, before Visa and Mastercard left Russia), the issue of UnionPay cards in the country was estimated at 50,000 units, now it is 500,000. As Kommersant notes , most of them are virtual, for paying for goods and services on the Internet.