Fintech company Mercury, which works with startups and other businesses, will stop serving clients in the territory of Ukraine. Entrepreneurs with accounts in Mercury received a letter informing them of this decision.
Yaroslav Azhnyuk, the founder of the Ukrainian company Petcube, announced this on his social media account, posting a letter he received from Mercury. The letter states they will stop supporting accounts of companies whose founders have passports from Belarus, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Syria, Venezuela, and Ukraine. The accounts are scheduled to shut down on August 13, 2024.
“This is not the kind of partnership that a country [Ukraine] that is holding back the onslaught of barbarians [Russia] from the east and western civilization deserves,” Azhnyuk wrote.
Thirty minutes ago, Ukrainian entrepreneurs doing business with @mercury bank got a 2-weeks eviction notice, being put alongside with the individuals from russia, belarus, and North Korea. Really? But the issue seems to be even deeper: 1/X pic.twitter.com/espURwiSmN
— Yaroslav Azhnyuk / Ярослав Ажнюк (@YaroslavAzhnyuk) July 22, 2024
Many perceive Mercury’s decision to stop its services in all of Ukraine as an unwillingness to put effort into only banning territories occupied by Russia.
“To give more context about the policy change: while Ukraine is not comprehensively sanctioned, several regions of Ukraine are sanctioned. We previously applied a region-based model to support as many customers in Ukraine as possible; however, supporting this policy while also upholding our rigorous standards on compliance has become increasingly complex. We will continue to revisit this policy and hope that we can change this in the future,” the company explained.
According to Azhnyuk, this is not the first case of such a situation on the part of the American financial system. Earlier this year, the Ukrainian businessman was unable to transfer money to Ukraine from his Chase bank account.
The vast majority of American, European, and Asian companies continue to work on the territory of Ukraine. Restrictions apply only to the territory of Crimea and other temporarily occupied territories. Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, one of the most popular services, PayPal, expanded its services for Ukrainian customers.
