Russia says JPMorgan stops processing its grain payments
investing.comBy Michelle Nichols
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) — Russia said on Friday that U.S. bank JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) had this week stopped processing payments for the Russian Agricultural Bank as Moscow demanded action, not promises, from Washington to help Russian grain and fertilizer reach global markets.
Moscow has a list of demands it wants met before it will return to a deal, which it quit on July 17, that had allowed the safe Black Sea exports of Ukraine grain for the past year. Under a related pact — also brokered in July 2022 — U.N. officials agreed to help facilitate Russian food and fertilizer exports.
«As soon as this is done, this deal will immediately be renewed,» Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters on Thursday that Washington would continue to do «whatever is necessary» to ensure Russia can freely export food if the Black Sea grain deal was revived.
A key Russian requirement has been the reconnection of the Russian Agricultural Bank to the SWIFT international payments system. It was cut off by the European Union in June last year following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
As a workaround to that demand, JPMorgan had been processing some Russian grain export payments with reassurances from Washington. However, that cooperation stopped this week, Russia's Foreign Ministry said on Friday.
«The direct channel between the Russian Agricultural Bank and JPMorgan, which the West and the United Nations tried to present as a working alternative to SWIFT, was closed on Aug. 2,» foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova was quoted by Russian media as saying.
The United Nations declined to comment. The U.S. State Department and JPMorgan did not immediately
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