The volume of transfers from Russia to Kazakhstan almost tripled

The volume of money transfers from Russia to Kazakhstan in March 2023 amounted to 12.2 billion tenge ($27.5 million), having increased by 168% over the year, that is, 2.7 times, follows from the statistics of the NATIONAL BANK of Kazakhstan. In dollars, the growth was 171%. The data take into account transfers through the Zolotaya Korona, Contact, Unistream and other money transfer systems (61.6 thousand transfers were made in March 2023). Russia leads in terms of cross-country transfers to Kazakhstan: its share in terms of volumes is 41%, in terms of the number of transfers - 54%.

In the first quarter of 2023, 33.9 billion tenge was transferred from Russia to Kazakhstan. This exceeds the figure for the same period in 2022 by more than 300%. Over the entire past year, 357 billion tenge, or about $775.4 million, was sent from Russia to Kazakhstan, and this is a record at least since 2014 - statistics are available from this period. The DOLLAR figure is 6.8 times the volume of transfers sent to this country in 2021.

One of the main reasons for the growth in transfers is the relocation of citizens from Russia to other countries, the opening of cards in Kazakhstan, as well as the increasingly popular service for buying certain goods abroad that were not available in Russia due to sanctions, experts previously interviewed by RBC said.

In early 2022, Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine . This led to the introduction by Western countries of large-scale sanctions against the Russian financial system, the withdrawal of Visa and Mastercard cards from Russia, as well as the emigration of some Russian citizens. Due to financial restrictions, Russians have had difficulty accessing their money abroad. Transfers through payment systems allow you to receive money abroad in cash or on cards of local banks.

According to the FSB border service, in 2022, the number of Russians traveling abroad amounted to 23.2 million. Of these, 6.9 million trips were made for the purpose of tourism. Kazakhstan ranked third among other destinations in terms of popularity - Russians made 2.7 million trips to this country: the peak occurred in the third quarter, when partial mobilization was announced in Russia, the number of those who left was the highest since the third quarter of 2013. The FSB border service statistics take into account the number of crossings by Russian citizens of the state border, that is, the data do not allow us to say how many Russians left Russia for a long time. The leading purpose of the visit to this country was private trips, follows from the statistics of the FSB.