9 ms·

Thank you Wise for blocking our business account

aasasd 5y ago
Ah, yes, the ‘response’, the ‘sanctions’. I'm sure that Germany and Poland will also stop buying natural gas from Russia, to hit Putin and his buddies where they actually give non-zero shits. Any day now—after all, everyone is so enraged, the EU has to punish the people making the decisions!
Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
A follow up question: is there a jurisdiction that is hostile to Putin's regime and would not cooperate with Putin's police/special services requests, but not hostile to Russian Citizens willing to do business overseas?
- bombcar 5y ago
  Apparently China or India may be the main places you can find; personally I'd be a bit cautious with China. The cat is out of the bag, this stuff will get worse in the future - it is very likely that businesses will need to have multiple payment processors/streams and their customers will need to be flexible.
  - Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
    Of all places, China is totally the best to develop a decentralised chat application. /s Also, they are in cahoots with Putin.
  - ushakov 5y ago
    right now you can accept SWIFT for non-sanctioned banks or UnionPay which is a Chinese payment system compatible with Russian cards
- ushakov 5y ago
  i'm a Russian citizen doing business in EU for residents there are no restrictions for doing business
  - bombcar 5y ago
    It's not the legal restrictions, it's companies taking it upon themselves to ban anyone who even smelled Russia in the past (Namecheap, Wise, etc). That is much harder to defend again because companies don't care, and there's no legal recourse.
    - ushakov 5y ago
      we don't need to do business with these companies then! although, i'm pretty sure companies based in EU can't discriminate against EU residents we have the best legal framework in the world when it comes to privacy and human rights
      - bombcar 5y ago
        I suspect many companies are going to be subject to some very lucrative lawsuits later, but for now they are doing exactly this (see this thread, the Namecheap one from earlier).
- iicc 5y ago
  Such a jurisdictions would need to limit cooperation with Interpol. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpol#Abusive_requests_for_Interpol_arrests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpol#Abusive_requests_for_... https://freedomhouse.org/report/transnational-repression/russia https://freedomhouse.org/report/transnational-repression/rus... >The Kremlin is perhaps the world’s most prolific abuser of the Interpol notice system. As other governments have found, Interpol notices and diffusions (see “Methods of Transnational Repression”) are low-cost means for the Kremlin to harass and detain exiles. >The Kremlin’s targeting of financier Bill Browder through Interpol Red Notices has made the tool famous, but it uses the tactic to an extraordinary extent, and often against targets far less prominent. >Without more transparency at Interpol, it is difficult to determine why or how the Kremlin is able to use its notice system so extensively. Nevertheless, Russia is responsible for a staggering 38 percent of all public Red Notices in the world, while the United States is responsible 4.3 percent and China 0.5 percent. >Russian authorities have even been able to use Red Notices to detain individuals residing in the United States for long periods of time. For instance, in two separate public cases in the last two years, Russian asylum seekers spent over a year in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention based on Russian-sourced Interpol Red Notices.
  - Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
    At this point Russian Interpol participation is corrupted. They are known to try to extradite dissidents on false charges... which are ignored by the Interpol officials. That's the kind of behavior I'm seeking for a host country.
ed_elliott_asc 5y ago
What I don’t understand is, if there are sanctions, why wasn’t everything stopped when they started? Why did it take over a week after the sanctions started? (I know that oil and gas aren’t sanctioned)
- sp332 5y ago
  Not absolutely everything is sanctioned. Lots of companies are "self-sanctioning".
- vertis 5y ago
  To the best of my knowledge, these aren't sanctions, just companies acting unilaterally to support Ukraine. So many stories of it having an impact on those on our side, that just happen to have a Russian or Belarusian passport. Even people that have already fled after previous crackdowns. They don't just get magical new passports.
  - ushakov 5y ago
    me too, i have my "bad" passport somewhere in the closet, but i don't live in Russia over half of my life and don't plan to return any time soon luckily, identity verification can be done with EU-residence permit and hopefully companies don't start discriminating Russians abroad
  - sofixa 5y ago
    > To the best of my knowledge, these aren't sanctions, just companies acting unilaterally to support Ukraine Some of the sanctions ( like kicking out of SWIFT most Russian banks) make doing business in Russia extremely complicated, so even if there aren't direct sanctions forcing a pullout, they can indirectly have that effect.
    - vertis 5y ago
      Agreed, but the SWIFT problems shouldn't impact EU business accounts (which is what I suspect this is, based of the twitter profiles location in Tallinn).
shmatt 5y ago
This isn't really a new concept. See the whole BDS / boycotting Israeli products idea Israel is 20% Arab, Israel has plenty of anti-settlement political parties, even senior government members. When you boycott Israel you are boycotting the anti settlement people as well as the pro settlement people. And you are also boycotting the Christian and Muslim Arabs This had a weird side effect when there was a boycott happening against Soda Stream, because they were made in a settlement. Well, Jews mostly don't work in factories in settlements, Palestinians do. The boycott worked, Soda Stream moved their factory to inside the green line, and all the Palestinians were fired.
- snotrockets 5y ago
  The goal of BDS isn’t to convince the settlers, it’s exactly against the people like yourself, who are complicit in not acting against it. As for Palestinian Israelis stance on BDS, just ask them. Silencing the Palestinian minorities in Israel is part of the problem.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
temptemptemp111 5y ago
Jiro 5y ago
Does not load for me.
- tsm 5y ago
  Tweet with no image from @Xabber_XMPP: Thanks @Wise for standing up to Putin and closing our business account because of the 'wrong' passport of the founder Apparently, being blocked in Russia for refusing to comply with state surveillance laws and being detained at anti-Putin rallies is not enough punishment for us
- bombcar 5y ago
  https://nitter.net/Xabber_XMPP/status/1501204627563454473 https://nitter.net/Xabber_XMPP/status/1501204627563454473 Nitter is working, not sure what Twitter is doing (maybe censoring?)
- o_m 5y ago
  You have to refresh the site multiple times until it loads. I guess it's one of the non-user account hostile tactics of Twitter.
Mikeb85 5y ago
How would Wise transfers even work with the sanctions? Not to mention the lack of liquidity in the market for Rubles... Edit - really, I would like someone to explain exactly how Wise should accomplish RUB-USD/EUR transactions with the current sanctions and if they'd take that risk on themselves. Nothing like holding a falling knife...
- ectopod 5y ago
  Afaict, the person complaining is a Russian passport holder but not a resident of Russia. They aren't trying to do business in or with Russia.
  - Mikeb85 5y ago
    Based on the tweet they are physically in Russia (talked about being detained for protesting against Putin). So guessing they've tried to make transactions in Russia.
    - Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
      We do not need to make transactions in Russia. It is not even possible now for biggest russian banks, and with new local regulation requiring a forced sale of 80% of incoming currency at a 'current' price, it doesn't even make any sense.
      - Mikeb85 5y ago
        Ok then it's probably an error... Dunno, just guessing. This whole thread is based on a tweet...
        Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
        No, it is a policy. All companies with Russian founders who are residents of Russia received such emails also.
tharne 5y ago
I worry that a lot of these sanctions are going to backfire. If I'm an average Russian citizen, maybe I'm against the war, or more likely I just don't feel very strongly about it. If the West then destroys my livelihood and financial wellbeing with sanctions, eventually my reaction is going to be something like, "f*k these NATO guys, they're ruining my life for something I have nothing to do with and can't do anything about anyway". I was against the Iraq War back in 2003, but I would have been livid if the whole world punished ordinary Americans with sanctions, even though the majority of us voted against G.W. Bush in 2000. The fastest way to create unity among a group of people is to arbitrarily punish all of them together. This is, in part, why the military runs basic training the way it does.
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  Russians have a pretty good history of knocking off their leadership when things aren't going well for the general population. The next leaders aren't necessarily any better, but it's still the main leverage over Putin the West has right now.
  - Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
    Erm when exactly did that happen, after WW1, more than 100 years ago?
    - Mikeb85 5y ago
      Fall of the Soviet Union wasn't that long ago... They didn't kill them that time and it was more peaceful but they did replace them.
      - Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
        Fall of the Soviet Union was mostly an internal coup supported by the street rather than a popular uprising.
        5y ago
onemoresoop 5y ago
If these sanctions or unilateral support moves were well thought out they could have strengthen the Russian opposition and weaken Putin hold on power, by only allowing some of friendly actors to do business/move money around. Yes, it's complicated but could have been a possible solution instead of using the same paintbrush which may backfire in the most spectacular way. These companies who suddenly drop the business, close bank accounts and so on create fear in their customers all over the world, some of them would choose to do business with companies that respect contracts and allow grace periods for their customers to migrate to other services.

Ah, yes, the ‘response’, the ‘sanctions’. I'm sure that Germany and Poland will also stop buying natural gas from Russia, to hit Putin and his buddies where they actually give non-zero shits. Any day now—after all, everyone is so enraged, the EU has to punish the people making the decisions!

Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago

A follow up question: is there a jurisdiction that is hostile to Putin's regime and would not cooperate with Putin's police/special services requests, but not hostile to Russian Citizens willing to do business overseas?

bombcar 5y ago
Apparently China or India may be the main places you can find; personally I'd be a bit cautious with China. The cat is out of the bag, this stuff will get worse in the future - it is very likely that businesses will need to have multiple payment processors/streams and their customers will need to be flexible.
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
  Of all places, China is totally the best to develop a decentralised chat application. /s Also, they are in cahoots with Putin.
- ushakov 5y ago
  right now you can accept SWIFT for non-sanctioned banks or UnionPay which is a Chinese payment system compatible with Russian cards
ushakov 5y ago
i'm a Russian citizen doing business in EU for residents there are no restrictions for doing business
- bombcar 5y ago
  It's not the legal restrictions, it's companies taking it upon themselves to ban anyone who even smelled Russia in the past (Namecheap, Wise, etc). That is much harder to defend again because companies don't care, and there's no legal recourse.
  - ushakov 5y ago
    we don't need to do business with these companies then! although, i'm pretty sure companies based in EU can't discriminate against EU residents we have the best legal framework in the world when it comes to privacy and human rights
    - bombcar 5y ago
      I suspect many companies are going to be subject to some very lucrative lawsuits later, but for now they are doing exactly this (see this thread, the Namecheap one from earlier).
iicc 5y ago
Such a jurisdictions would need to limit cooperation with Interpol. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpol#Abusive_requests_for_Interpol_arrests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpol#Abusive_requests_for_... https://freedomhouse.org/report/transnational-repression/russia https://freedomhouse.org/report/transnational-repression/rus... >The Kremlin is perhaps the world’s most prolific abuser of the Interpol notice system. As other governments have found, Interpol notices and diffusions (see “Methods of Transnational Repression”) are low-cost means for the Kremlin to harass and detain exiles. >The Kremlin’s targeting of financier Bill Browder through Interpol Red Notices has made the tool famous, but it uses the tactic to an extraordinary extent, and often against targets far less prominent. >Without more transparency at Interpol, it is difficult to determine why or how the Kremlin is able to use its notice system so extensively. Nevertheless, Russia is responsible for a staggering 38 percent of all public Red Notices in the world, while the United States is responsible 4.3 percent and China 0.5 percent. >Russian authorities have even been able to use Red Notices to detain individuals residing in the United States for long periods of time. For instance, in two separate public cases in the last two years, Russian asylum seekers spent over a year in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention based on Russian-sourced Interpol Red Notices.
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
  At this point Russian Interpol participation is corrupted. They are known to try to extradite dissidents on false charges... which are ignored by the Interpol officials. That's the kind of behavior I'm seeking for a host country.

ed_elliott_asc 5y ago

What I don’t understand is, if there are sanctions, why wasn’t everything stopped when they started? Why did it take over a week after the sanctions started? (I know that oil and gas aren’t sanctioned)

sp332 5y ago
Not absolutely everything is sanctioned. Lots of companies are "self-sanctioning".
vertis 5y ago
To the best of my knowledge, these aren't sanctions, just companies acting unilaterally to support Ukraine. So many stories of it having an impact on those on our side, that just happen to have a Russian or Belarusian passport. Even people that have already fled after previous crackdowns. They don't just get magical new passports.
- ushakov 5y ago
  me too, i have my "bad" passport somewhere in the closet, but i don't live in Russia over half of my life and don't plan to return any time soon luckily, identity verification can be done with EU-residence permit and hopefully companies don't start discriminating Russians abroad
- sofixa 5y ago
  > To the best of my knowledge, these aren't sanctions, just companies acting unilaterally to support Ukraine Some of the sanctions ( like kicking out of SWIFT most Russian banks) make doing business in Russia extremely complicated, so even if there aren't direct sanctions forcing a pullout, they can indirectly have that effect.
  - vertis 5y ago
    Agreed, but the SWIFT problems shouldn't impact EU business accounts (which is what I suspect this is, based of the twitter profiles location in Tallinn).

shmatt 5y ago

This isn't really a new concept. See the whole BDS / boycotting Israeli products idea Israel is 20% Arab, Israel has plenty of anti-settlement political parties, even senior government members. When you boycott Israel you are boycotting the anti settlement people as well as the pro settlement people. And you are also boycotting the Christian and Muslim Arabs This had a weird side effect when there was a boycott happening against Soda Stream, because they were made in a settlement. Well, Jews mostly don't work in factories in settlements, Palestinians do. The boycott worked, Soda Stream moved their factory to inside the green line, and all the Palestinians were fired.

snotrockets 5y ago
The goal of BDS isn’t to convince the settlers, it’s exactly against the people like yourself, who are complicit in not acting against it. As for Palestinian Israelis stance on BDS, just ask them. Silencing the Palestinian minorities in Israel is part of the problem.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

temptemptemp111 5y ago

Jiro 5y ago

Does not load for me.

tsm 5y ago
Tweet with no image from @Xabber_XMPP: Thanks @Wise for standing up to Putin and closing our business account because of the 'wrong' passport of the founder Apparently, being blocked in Russia for refusing to comply with state surveillance laws and being detained at anti-Putin rallies is not enough punishment for us
bombcar 5y ago
https://nitter.net/Xabber_XMPP/status/1501204627563454473 https://nitter.net/Xabber_XMPP/status/1501204627563454473 Nitter is working, not sure what Twitter is doing (maybe censoring?)
o_m 5y ago
You have to refresh the site multiple times until it loads. I guess it's one of the non-user account hostile tactics of Twitter.

Mikeb85 5y ago

How would Wise transfers even work with the sanctions? Not to mention the lack of liquidity in the market for Rubles... Edit - really, I would like someone to explain exactly how Wise should accomplish RUB-USD/EUR transactions with the current sanctions and if they'd take that risk on themselves. Nothing like holding a falling knife...

ectopod 5y ago
Afaict, the person complaining is a Russian passport holder but not a resident of Russia. They aren't trying to do business in or with Russia.
- Mikeb85 5y ago
  Based on the tweet they are physically in Russia (talked about being detained for protesting against Putin). So guessing they've tried to make transactions in Russia.
  - Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
    We do not need to make transactions in Russia. It is not even possible now for biggest russian banks, and with new local regulation requiring a forced sale of 80% of incoming currency at a 'current' price, it doesn't even make any sense.
    - Mikeb85 5y ago
      Ok then it's probably an error... Dunno, just guessing. This whole thread is based on a tweet...
      - Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
        No, it is a policy. All companies with Russian founders who are residents of Russia received such emails also.

tharne 5y ago

I worry that a lot of these sanctions are going to backfire. If I'm an average Russian citizen, maybe I'm against the war, or more likely I just don't feel very strongly about it. If the West then destroys my livelihood and financial wellbeing with sanctions, eventually my reaction is going to be something like, "f*k these NATO guys, they're ruining my life for something I have nothing to do with and can't do anything about anyway". I was against the Iraq War back in 2003, but I would have been livid if the whole world punished ordinary Americans with sanctions, even though the majority of us voted against G.W. Bush in 2000. The fastest way to create unity among a group of people is to arbitrarily punish all of them together. This is, in part, why the military runs basic training the way it does.

ceejayoz 5y ago
Russians have a pretty good history of knocking off their leadership when things aren't going well for the general population. The next leaders aren't necessarily any better, but it's still the main leverage over Putin the West has right now.
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
  Erm when exactly did that happen, after WW1, more than 100 years ago?
  - Mikeb85 5y ago
    Fall of the Soviet Union wasn't that long ago... They didn't kill them that time and it was more peaceful but they did replace them.
    - Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
      Fall of the Soviet Union was mostly an internal coup supported by the street rather than a popular uprising.
      - 5y ago

onemoresoop 5y ago

If these sanctions or unilateral support moves were well thought out they could have strengthen the Russian opposition and weaken Putin hold on power, by only allowing some of friendly actors to do business/move money around. Yes, it's complicated but could have been a possible solution instead of using the same paintbrush which may backfire in the most spectacular way. These companies who suddenly drop the business, close bank accounts and so on create fear in their customers all over the world, some of them would choose to do business with companies that respect contracts and allow grace periods for their customers to migrate to other services.