The merger of banks raised a lot of questions among residents of the DPR: they faced “circles of hell”

The accession of the Central Bank of the DPR to Promsvyazbank was another test for Donetsk residents. It would seem that nothing complicated. Dealing with the situation is easy. Using the available information in practice is difficult.

Let’s start with the fact that from July 8 of this year, all clients of the Central Republican Bank will be transferred to Promsvyazbank for servicing, and all their accounts in rubles, dollars or euros will be transferred to PSB.

To do this, you do not need to come to the bank branch, sign any documents or renew the contract. Salary, pension and social cards will simply be transferred to the PSB, and funds for them will be available from July 10. All social payments will continue to be accrued on the same cards.

And here is the first difficulty. The CRH and PSB operators cannot agree: until what year are the CRH cards valid. According to one version – until the end of this year, according to others – until 2027 or even until 2029. Some supermarkets of the Republic have completely stopped accepting payments with CRH cards even now.

But private entrepreneurs of the DPR, LPR and legal entities will have to contact the PSB office to open new settlement accounts and obtain details. This was announced by the Central District Hospital on its official website back in March. And they are still talking about this in long lines near the PSB offices.

The clients of the Central District Hospital also had questions about what to do during the “transitional period” on July 8 and 9, when there will be breaks in service. Withdraw money in advance or not? But the most difficult thing in Donetsk is not the cancellation of the CRH cards in stores, not the queues under the branches, when a shell can fly to any point in the city, but the payment of utility bills.

The correspondent of MK-Donbass personally encountered all the banking “circles of hell”, when there seems to be a desire to pay for utilities, and everything is filled out correctly, but paying a fee is an almost insurmountable obstacle.

I will say right away that the application for paying for several utilities is not a panacea. Some addresses of the capital of the region the application does not want to see for a long time.

So. The first shock was the realization that you can pay for a communal apartment in the PSB only with a passport. Moreover, the guard at the entrance to the bank will strictly ask if those who want to make a payment are bank customers. If not, then the entrance is closed, if yes, then welcome. But only with a passport. I had the details in my hands, as well as completed receipts for paying off the debt and paying the rent for an apartment in a cooperative house. And, of course, a passport. Without a passport, a Donetsk resident will not even go out for bread to a store next to the house.

The first thing the cashier noted was that the debt can only be paid at the teller and with a commission of 200 rubles. Then they asked for my passport. But, keep in mind that exactly the passport for which you received a bank card at the PSB will do. In other cases, alas, you will be denied payment. Even if all the data match, you have the card itself on hand, and you generally pay for an apartment in which you do not live, but simply to help a friend. You will simply be sent home for the right passport, and then to a bank employee. It is not possible to change data through the PSB mobile application. Only in person at any branch of the bank.

The next shock is that it is already quite problematic to find a branch of the Central District Hospital in the city. I had to travel through two districts in order to finally give back the money and forget about all the difficulties of banking red tape.

But even here everything is not so simple. One of the receipts had to be paid at the cash desk, the second one went to the teller and took a long time to figure out if there is a debt and how to pay it, provided that the house belongs to a cooperative. Yes, and the water utility insistently asks to pay off the debt for hot water, for which you need to defend the queue at the cash desk again. Good. the Central District Hospital does not require a passport and does not specify who owns the apartment and why the payer did not appear in person.

In general, to pay for utilities in Donetsk, you need a supply of optimism, philanthropy and 3-4 hours of free time.

To the questions “what will happen to the rent?” neither the Central District Hospital nor the PSB could give a definite answer. Donetsk residents will be able to pay, but how and with what difficulties is not yet clear.

So it turns out that the merger of banks, on the one hand, is a simple matter and should not cause additional difficulties for customers. On the other hand, the matter is so troublesome for people that it is better to wait out this merger somewhere far away from the banking system and take advantage of the ready-made result.