Bereke Bank restores transactions with Visa cards

Bereke Bank has restored transactions with cards connected to the international payment system Visa. The banks did the same with cards by Mastercard in August.

Thus, the bank is currently rendering services for holders of cards by the two leading international payment systems. The bank’s clients are now offered a set of routine transactions with banking cards like paying in shops or online, withdrawing cash from ATMs and making money transactions in the tenge and foreign currency in Kazakhstan and worldwide.

By bringing back transactions with Visa cards, the bank has reached its goal of restoring its capabilities and can once again offer a wide range of services to its clients, the bank said in a statement. In June, Andrey Timchenko, the CEO of the Bereke Bank, said that this process would take a month and a half.

Until September last year, Bereke Bank was controlled by the Russian Sberbank and worked under its umbrella brand. In March 2022, the U.S. imposed blocking sanctions against the parent company of the bank, which significantly affected clients of its subsidiary in Kazakhstan. For instance, all they were able to do was withdraw money from the bank’s ATMs and pay for purchases in those shops where Sberbank was a provider of acquiring services.

In September of that year, the bank was purchased by the holding of Baiterek and later renamed Bereke Bank. At the time, the bank said that it would seek the lifting of sanctions. In March 2023, the U.S. Department of the Treasury removed the bank from its list of specially designated nationals or SDN.