“Throwing” Qiwi: in the payment system “hung” the money of customers
For the second day in a row, customers of the Qiwi payment system, popular in Russia, are in limbo and are worried about their own funds, the UtroNews correspondent reports.
Last Wednesday, July 26, the company unilaterally informed customers about the introduction of restrictions on virtually all transactions with funds. Users cannot withdraw cash from their own wallets, transfer them to other banks due to the established limit of one thousand rubles per month.
At the same time, the press service of the payment system assures that customers can still pay utility bills, mobile communications and other services, as well as purchases in stores, from wallets.
The news caused a stir, and the company’s shares collapsed on the stock exchange immediately by 6.5%.
As Kommersant writes, on Wednesday evening, the company’s press service issued a statement about full and active cooperation with the Bank of Russia to eliminate shortcomings, they say, “everything will be fine soon.” True, then an accident happened.
The text of the press release read: “Now we are working closely with the Central Bank in order to eliminate the identified shortcomings and partially or completely cancel the restrictions imposed. However, there is no certainty that we will succeed.”
It turns out that they signed their own helplessness? After a couple of hours, they changed their minds – the statement was disavowed by a new press release from the company, where it was said that the part of the text that caused the commotion “is not an indicator of the development of the current situation around Qiwi.”
Surprising placement of information accents. The thing is that on the website of the Bank of Russia there is no order from Qiwi, which caused interruptions in withdrawals and payments. On the official website, it is directly written that the company itself introduced partial restrictions for individuals and customers. But the information is replicated in such a way that, they say, it was the Central Bank that blocked Qiwi funds. Doesn’t this look like direct blackmail of the regulator?
According to The Moscow Post, such a case was not the first in the history of the payment service. In 2020, the Central Bank already limited a number of operations of Qiwi and Qiwi Bank, fined it 11 million rubles. Details of the reasons for this decision were not officially given, but experts argued that the claims were related to payments to the online casino.
That is, for several years the company could be engaged in manipulations of a not entirely legal nature, but now it has “got caught”? The same authors write that, allegedly, the service could be used for “cashing out” as early as 2017, and this was by no means patronized by the last people of the country. Among them is the former head of the Main Directorate for Economic Security and Anti-Corruption (GUEBiPK) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Denis Sugrobov, who was subsequently sentenced to 22 years in prison for creating an organized criminal community.
Problems began to grow like a snowball, and finally turned into a big avalanche. So, according to the banking analyst service, in just a month (the latest available data date back to February 2022), the amount of money in Qiwi Bank has decreased by 57%, the volume of reserves for possible losses has fallen by at least half, liquidity ratios have seriously sagged.
The users of the payment system did not stand aside either. Stories appear on the Web every now and then about how Qiwi “legally” write off large sums from accounts, ignore customer problems, and now completely freeze user funds due to their own problems.
In view of the foregoing, the following situation emerges. A company with a reputation as a “cash-out” kind of “suddenly” got a lot of problems, in which it indirectly blamed the Central Bank, and then, in fact, took users’ money hostage, but continues to hang on the “authorities” all the negative social consequences of its own dubious and short-sighted action? Yes, and rushing about in the information field – either we will return the money to customers, or hzikhidtidekrt No.
Probably, the oddities around Qiwi should be of interest to law enforcement. They will figure out what kind of things are going on in the payment service. Whether customers will return their funds remains an open question.