OREANDA-NEWS  The volume of money transfers from Russia to Kazakhstan in April decreased for the first time after a surge in their volumes in the same month last year — by 44 percent in annual terms, writes RBC with reference to statistics of the National Bank of Kazakhstan (NBK).

During the month, Russians sent 10.2 billion tenge (1.7 billion rubles) to Kazakhstan — at least since April 2022. Compared to March, the volume drop was 16 percent. For the first time in a year, the number of transactions also fell: by 27 percent year—on-year, by 15.4 percent month-on-month. The statistics take into account transfers through the systems "Golden Crown", Contact, "Unistream" and others.

Despite the reduction in transfers by almost half over the year, Russians still sent more to Kazakhstan than citizens of all other countries - the share of transactions from the Russian Federation was 39 percent. Russia is followed by South Korea (10.3 percent), the USA (10.2 percent), Uzbekistan (10.1 percent) and Turkey (6.2 percent) in the ranking of countries in terms of the share of transfers to Kazakhstan. Due to the departure of Visa and Mastercard from Russia, as well as financial restrictions, the access of emigrated citizens to their money abroad was difficult. Often, Russians who found themselves in another country resorted to transfers through payment systems — with their help, you can get funds abroad in cash or to local bank cards.