Zolotaya Korona Suspends Transfers to Georgia and Other Countries After EU Sanctions

Zolotaya Korona has stopped transfers to Georgia and several other destinations after the EU’s new sanctions package against Russia. For PSPs and banks, the useful detail is not the geopolitics; it is that sanctions on an operator can quickly turn into route-level outages, even when the service still claims to be operating normally.

1. Zolotaya Korona said “some transfer destinations are currently unavailable,” after reports that transfers to Georgia and other countries were disrupted. In the app and on the website, the only destinations from Russia that remained available were Uzbekistan, Turkey, Kyrgyzstan, and Azerbaijan, according to RBC.
2. RBC also reported that a transfer to Kazakhstan through Zolotaya Korona failed with the message: “The operation cannot be completed.” The service told the Telegram channel Kod Durova that the same issue affected Cifra Bank, and that “transfers through Cifra Bank are temporarily suspended.”
3. Cifra Bank’s support said the bank was working normally, but that “some operations may be temporarily unavailable.” It added that the bank was working to restore them and would provide an update later. The bank also said the sanctions would not affect its operating activity because “measures to protect against such risks” had already been taken.
4. Support for Kazakhstan’s Freedom, which is a member of the international payment system Zolotaya Korona, told RBC that transfers between Cifra Bank and Freedom Bank were unavailable. Freedom said it strictly follows international law, including sanctions requirements, and does not maintain business relations with sanctioned organizations.
5. The EU adopted its 21st sanctions package against Russia on 23 July. The package covers the energy, financial, and crypto sectors, and Brussels froze assets and banned operations for 94 Russian banks. The list includes RNKO “Payment Center,” the operator and settlement center of Zolotaya Korona, as well as Cifra Bank.

For high-risk operators, this is a reminder that sanctions exposure does not stay at the bank level for long. Once an operator or its settlement center lands on a sanctions list, transfer corridors can disappear country by country, and partners will move fast to cut the chain.