Siauliu Bankas, the last Lithuanian bank accepting Russian payments for Kaliningrad transit services, has called on the government to provide clarity.
“Public authorities must state clearly whether transit is a function of interest to the state, or not,” Vytautas Sinius, the CEO of Siauliu Bankas, said.
“We are waiting for a clarification from public authorities about how the state interprets transit in this context. That’s what we are waiting for now,” he added.
Siauliu Bankas is due to suspend all transactions with Russia from September. It would only make exceptions for payments for humanitarian purposes or to “ensure state functions”, the bank previously said.
The bank’s CEO also said other factors would be important when it decided on whether to continue servicing Russian payments.
“We would consider all issues related to risk management, to transit as well as to the need to ensure nationally significant functions – whether transit should be treated as one of those,” he said. “Another element is the risk of sanctions posed by the handling of transactions with Russia and Belarus. If there are any more elements, we will assess those additionally.”
“We cannot assume any risks that are unmanageable or are hardly manageable,” Sinus added.
Sinius could not define what would constitute the government expressing its position.
After banning sanctioned goods from traversing its territory, Lithuania allowed rail transit to resume on July 22 following a stand-off between Vilnius, Brussels and the Kremlin.
The existing EU sanctions for Russia and Belarus did not ban banks from handling payments for rail services, Arianna Podesta, the European Commission’s spokesperson for competition and Eurostat, said on August 11. (LRT/Business World Magazine)