The National Bank of Tajikistan (NBT) advises domestic lenders to restrict cooperation with Russia’s Unistream Money Transfer Company.
“Under conditions of the uncertainty regarding further activity of Unistream, the NBT advises domestic banks to temporarily refrain from carrying out any transactions with this money transfer company,” an official source at Tajik central bank told Asia-Plus in an interview.
Currently, only 10 percent of Tajik lending agencies cooperate with the Unistream Money Transfer Company, he said.
The National Bank of Tajikistan granted the operating license to Unistream Money transfer Company in late August this year. The license is reportedly valid for three years. .
In Tajikistan, UnIstream works with IMON International, Bank Eskhata, Tojiksodirotbonk (TSB), The First MicroFinanceBank and some other lending agencies.
Meanwhile, some Russian media report said on November 21 that some Russian banks have suspended or terminated cooperation agreements with Unistream Company after a hacker attack. Some credit institutions reportedly blocked all incoming correspondence from Unistream Company after sending malicious content from its legal e-mail address.
As it became known, the recipients of the “malicious mailing” were many banks from its partners in Russia, as well as in some CIS member nations. Foreign partners reacted harshly to the hacking of Unistream Company — some banks from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan suspended cooperation with Unistream Company. For example, Orient Express Bank prematurely terminated the contract on cooperation.
Representatives of Unistream Company, however, deny the suspension of contracts with partners. It reportedly noted that investigation into the hacker attack was almost completed.
Unistream is an international money transfer company and bank based in Russia. The service was originally a department of Uniastrum Bank, but in 2006 became a separate company, with its own banking license.
Unistream has operations at 335,000 locations in over 100 countries. In October 2016 the Ukrainian government banned operations of Unistream and all other Russian payment systems as part of its sanction policy against the “Russian military intervention in Ukraine.”
Since 2016, Unistream has been cooperating with the money transfer network Moneyto Ltd, which acquired the rights to use the Unistream Money Transfer trademark in the European Union.
