Russian website: Belarus restricts cash withdrawals. Is it true?
An ATM in Minsk / Euroradio
Russia-based website Regnum.ru on 18 March reported that the “authorities in Belarus have introduced restrictions on cash withdrawals from banks,” allegedly quoting the state news agency BELTA. However, no link to the source was available in the story.
BELTA’s website has no information about the restrictions on cash withdrawals from Belarusian banks. “BELTA did not publish such a piece of news,” a spokesperson for the National Bank of Belarus told Euroradio. The National Bank’s website has no information about such a restriction either.
Several Belarusian banks that Euroradio contacted have confirmed that they received no orders from the regulator to introduce limits on cash withdrawals.
Some ATMs in Minsk operated by BTA Bank and Belagroprombank have run of cash US dollars but not because of the restrictions. Cash dollars can be withdrawn without limits from the machines that still have the US currency load.
Other banks like Alfa Bank have introduced pre-orders for the withdrawal of cash dollars from its branches. The VTB Bank on 19 March introduced restrictions on exchange transactions via bank cards.
It means that the latest restrictions are not imposed by the National Bank. Secondly, they are applied only to the non-cash exchange translations between Belarusian rubel and foreign currencies.
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