The Bank of Maldives (BML) on Monday evening, said that reports claiming it has stopped sending money to Russia and receiving from that country are false.
Russia’s RBC and several other outlets reported Monday that the Maldives national bank had stopped processing money sent to and received from Russia. Responding to these reports, the bank’s spokesperson Mohamed Saeed said in a post on X that BML had not made any formal statements about ceasing such transactions.
BML further gave assurances that the bank has not adopted any specific policy to stop transactions sent from Russia or connected to that country.
Saeed said that the bank, like its industry counterparts, relies on international correspondent banks for foreign currency transactions, especially US dollar transactions.
Saeed explained that these banks act according to their own measures, regulations and compliance policies, and this includes screening the parties to a transaction and its beneficial owners.
“It is reasonable for correspondent banks to reject or return transactions that fall within such policies. Correspondent banks have full discretion to make these decisions, and BML has to comply with them,” he said.
Russia media began circulating the news that BML has begun returning payments linked to hotel bookings for Russian tourists, which, according to one outlet created “new complications for one of the island nation’s biggest tourist markets.”
According to United24 Media, tour operators first encountered the problem earlier on October 18, when payments to hotel reservations began being returned. Russian Union of Travel Industry reported that some transfers were rejected “even when they had been sent by foreign legal entities” rather than Russian companies.
The union group has asked Russia’s Ministry of Economic Development and the Russian Embassy in the Maldives to consult local authorities and seek a solution for this matter.