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Ask HN: How to accept payment from Russian customers?

10 points by hknmtt ↗ HN
Since USA kicked Russia from supposedly independent SWIFT, no "western" bank will accept rubles and politically active Visa and MasterCard, as usual, cut all Russians off as well.

Russia has their SPFS or Chinese CIPS alternatives to SWIFT and their MIR card as alternative to visa/master.

I would like to accept payments from Russian customers, here in the amazingly stupid and suicidal EU. Is that somehow possible? The currency is irrelevant. I just want to keep providing online services to the Russian market.

I am sure there are plenty of online service providers facing this problem. So I hope someone has a solution that does not require me to go to Turkey, Singapore, Hong-Kong... to set up a new business entity in order to open up a local bank account.

13 comments

[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 35.6 ms ] thread
rvz
Your last resort is to use crypto.

Either via Coinbase commerce, Stripe Crypto, BitPay or an wallet address that they can send crypto to depending on which cryptocurrencies or stablecoins you accept.

hknmtt
I'll ask an accountant on tomorrow's meeting but i am afraid that could be a bit of an accounting nightmare.
jollyllama
A decade ago there used to be services that would cash out your crypto sales at market value at the end of the day to your merchant account; not sure if there are any such services around anymore.
PaulHoule
I think Russians aren’t allowed to use crypto by their government.
hknmtt
From quick search it looks like crypt is legal but not as a form of payment for goods and services. So this is a dead end.
anovikov
Ask yourself whether this is morally justified at all? Unless of course, your service is beneficial for undermining Russia, like something privacy related for the free speech or something...
gdy
You contradict yourself.

You admit that Russians are not homogenous pro-Putin mass (or else who'd use free speech?) and at the same time claim that selling online services to Russians is something immoral.

anovikov
It's about undermining Russia, not Russian citizens. Let's say, i have stopped working for Russian clients, but i'm fine working with Russian contractors - but only as long as they move out.
gdy
Being able to move out is a privilege few Russians have.

Do you work with the citizens of the countries that buy oil and gas from Russia? They ensure that they are warm and comfy by giving money to Putin.

mamonster
If you are going to be accepting payments from Russian customers, the size of your business is crucial. If it is small that's probably fine, if you are a big business you need to speak to a lawyer about possible sanctions impact. You need to be certain that you are not providing a service to a sanctioned entity or that you do not have any reg licenses coming up for review(they will look at it in a very bad way). Current sanctions allow for provision of services to certain Russian entities, and there is no legal problem assuming you don't self sanction.

In terms of accepting payments, the fact that you do not want to go to Turkey or Dubai is a big problem. It is the current scheme used for these sorts of things(I only know how it works for hedge funds) but if you want some sort of traditional experience of just receiving money in a bank Turkey/Dubai is what Russians(with money) themselves use. Depending on your customer, them setting up an account in Dubai/Russia might be a better solution, then for you there is no problem.

Otherwise, your option is crypto. If you know your customer well, you could speak with them about using Local BTC, it is very popular in Russia but then you need to keep it off the balance sheet completely(no taxes on this since it is pure P2P trading). You need an off exchange wallet to do this. The other option is obviously Monero, once again off exchange. Don't bother using anything on exchange(Coinbase/Binance/etc), once you have a steady transaction stream you will get KYC questions from their compliance department and the acc might get shut down.

To summarize, I currently don't know of a way to do it that would avoid your customers working with you to find a solution.

hknmtt
I don't think my country has any sanctions against Russia. Anything that exists comes from Brussels but I am not sure what and where so that is a question for a lawyer, for sure. As far as I know, as just a normie, I don't think sanctions on businesses are made in general, merely on import of goods. But since the SWIFT ting, they cannot pay anyone so it's an obstacle making dealing with Russia so complicated that it essentially makes it impossible for all businesses, even though there might be not be a law prohibiting it. As for off-the books approach, that is not what I am interested in. I want to stay 100% legal. Someone below has already recommended crypto, I'll look into it. I don't have Russian-centric business, I merely want to give Russian, or any other, customers a way to use my service. That's all.
darthrupert
Just freeze those accounts until Putin is gone. Shouldn't be long.
Lockal
Note that many countries, including Singapore, are in the list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unfriendly_Countries_List

Quoting from there: Debtors from countries on the list who sought to receive payments on the debt were required to open a special bank account at a Russian bank to receive payments in Russia's currency, rubles, rather than another international currency.[10] In addition, all new corporate deals between Russian companies and entities in countries on the Unfriendly Countries List had to seek approval from a government commission.[10]

Also opening a bank account in Turkey won't help, because payments from MIR are blocked there too since this week. You can still receive cash money from travelers, since March 2, 2022, there is a decree of Russian President Vladimir Putin, which prohibits taking abroad cash currency worth more than 10 thousand U.S. dollars per person.