Last week’s most relevant payments stories from the CIS: crypto exchange surveillance, betting ad bans, and the Pin-Up/Kapital Bank case

Here’s the short version for PSPs, acquirers, and risk teams: regulators and law enforcement across the CIS are tightening visibility into high-risk payment flows, while legislative pressure on betting and gambling keeps moving in a direction that matters for merchant acceptance, KYC, and transaction monitoring.

1. A gambler who withdrew winnings from an offshore operator to a card in 2024 received a claim for 1.16 million rubles two years later. The account holder that received the funds went bankrupt, and the bankruptcy trustee is now challenging the transfers.
2. From March 2027, the FSB will get 24/7 access to customer data from crypto exchangers, including passport details, IP addresses, and correspondence with support. The market asked for data to be handed over only on request, but the Central Bank refused, so the security services will have direct visibility into user accounts.
3. A relevant committee in the State Duma proposed rejecting the CPRF bill that would ban betting ads and raise the legal gambling age to 21. The bill came against a backdrop where bookmakers turned over 2 trillion rubles, while the budget received only 30 billion rubles.
4. Payments for Pin-Up and Pinco were routed through Azerbaijan’s Kapital Bank under the guise of tuition, utility bills, and government services. The structure even used MCC 8211 from a school-affiliated educational complex in Baku.
5. Kazakhstan’s AFM confirmed its earlier information about the search for Punin and Ilyina, placed both under in absentia arrest, and asked for help locating them. More than 106 billion tenge flowed through 24 payment terminals under the cover of the licensed Pin-Up.KZ operation.
6. In Georgia, a proposal was made to ban citizens from playing in casinos under a Monaco-style model. The country reportedly has gaming accounts for every third resident, 400,000 problem gamblers, and only tourists would be allowed to play under the proposed framework.