Belarusians with permanent residence are having their accounts closed in Swiss banks

A Reform.news reader reported that a subsidiary of the Swiss bank Swissquote terminated cooperation with him and closed his account without explanation. The issue concerns Yuh, a popular app in Switzerland — an analogue of Revolut, but with a Swiss bank account and investment features. The agreement was cancelled on August 11.

"Your card XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX has been permanently deactivated," the client was informed in the app.

Possible reasons mentioned were card deactivation by the client, a client's request for deactivation, abnormal card activity, or expiration of its validity.

He had not performed any actions, and no formal reasons for the refusal of service were communicated to him.

In an additional message, the company referred to Article 28 of the Yuh General Terms and Conditions for account services, which allows it to unilaterally terminate agreements without explanation.

The client was offered to independently sell Swissqoins and investment assets and transfer funds to an account in another bank by September 11.

It should be noted that the reader has a so-called Permit C, in German Niederlassungsbewilligung — a Swiss permanent residence permit that a foreigner receives after 10 years of living in the country.

Later, the local publication insideparadeplatz.ch published an article claiming that Russian citizens with Permit C faced similar problems. Their accounts were closed at Swissquote and Yuh.

"This directly affects, among others, people who have a permanent residence permit of category C, are permanent tax residents of Switzerland, and have committed no offenses," one of the affected individuals told the publication.

Swissquote CEO Marc Bürki confirmed the facts of agreement termination to the Swiss publication, but noted that these were isolated cases.

According to the insideparadeplatz.ch source, the wave of account closures at Swissquote and Yuh is much more extensive than described by bank CEO Bürki.

"Upon phone inquiry with customer support, we were verbally confirmed that this is an internal principled decision related to Russian citizenship," the source explained.

The reason given is "strengthened requirements of the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority." According to the source's estimate, the decision affected "approximately 600 accounts."

The 19th package of EU sanctions imposed against Russia and Belarus noted that credit institutions are prohibited from providing payment or electronic money services to Russian or Belarusian citizens and companies owned or controlled by them.

An exception is made only for those who have:

• a valid (non-expired) temporary or permanent residence permit issued by an EU member state, an EEA country, or Switzerland;
• a valid (non-expired) document confirming citizenship of an EU member state, an EEA country, or Switzerland.

The reader evidently has the right to banking services in Switzerland based on permanent residence.

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