Ukraine FAQ

What is Adyen’s response to the situation in Ukraine?

Adyen has not established a legal presence in Russia or Ukraine and any business exposures to Russia are very limited. Adyen’s first priority to the crisis has been to ensure the safety of our employees and merchants. Adyen is reaching out to all employees with ties to the area to offer support and provide assistance.
Adyen is partnering with the UNHCR Disaster Relief Fund and other charities (e.g. Giro 555, Red Cross) to allow Adyen merchants to fundraise through their checkout and POS terminals using Adyen Giving.
Adyen will match all donations made by our merchants’ shoppers for the Ukrainian relief effort via Adyen Giving - this applies to all charities mentioned above.
By default, Adyen absorbs all costs related to donations through Adyen Giving, ensuring that 100% of the donation amount reaches the charity.
Donations by Adyen employees to the UNHCR, Giro 555 and Red Cross that are made directly will also be matched.

Which sanctions has Adyen implemented?

Adyen is closely monitoring all responses and actions undertaken by the international community and is implementing the required sanctions blocks on entities, as imposed by the governments of certain countries/regions, which are constantly evolving (e.g. US, UK, EU, Japan, Canada, Australia). Currently measures that Adyen has taken include:

  • Ensuring that transactions involving sanctioned banks, businesses, and entities are blocked;
  • Suspending the availability of its US and EU processing services in impacted regions, e.g. the self-proclaimed regions Donetsk and Luhansk;
  • Suspending transaction processing in Russian ruble (RUB) regardless of country/region of issuing and related details, on all payment methods.
  • Effective March 6th 2022, Adyen has suspended cross-border transaction processing for all payment instruments issued by Russian financial institutions regardless of scheme network.
  • Effective March 10th 2022, Adyen will no longer be able to support payment transactions due to the announcements by Visa, Mastercard, Paypal and Amex to suspend all Russian operations. That implies that as of March 5th, 2022, (i) all transactions initiated with these payment methods issued by Russian financial institutions will no longer work outside of Russia and (ii) transactions with these payment methods issued by financial institutions outside of Russia will no longer work inside Russia.
  • Effective May 31st, 2023, to strengthen compliance with EU Sanctions Regulation (EU) No 883/2014 and equivalent sanctions packages from other G7 countries/regions, Adyen will be placing additional restrictions on the sale of luxury goods to shoppers located in Russia.

Throughout the constant changes and regulations issued, Adyen strives to maintain a close cooperation with merchants, card schemes, and regulators.|

Read the statement from Visa: https://usa.visa.com/visa-everywhere/blog/bdp/2022/02/28/a-message-from-1646083498219.html

Read the statement form Mastercard: https://www.mastercard.com/news/press/2022/february/mastercard-statement/

For more information on the EU sanctions and the definition of luxury goods therein, please visit the Council Regulation page: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:02014R0833-20220316

Is Adyen sanctioning Ukraine and no longer processing there?

Adyen is implementing the sanction rules on an ongoing basis, as applicable from country/region to country/region. Please keep in mind that the main measures required by the applicable sanctions regulations are directed toward the Russian Federation and Russian entities.

As of February 28th, 2022, in accordance with the imposed sanctions, Adyen has suspended the availability of its US and EU processing services within the self-proclaimed regions Donetsk and Luhansk.

Will captures, refunds and chargebacks from Russian Issuers or in RUB currency still be accepted / still be processed?

Effective Thursday, March 10, 2022, Visa, Mastercard, and Amex have blocked all transactions originating from Russian issued cards. Therefore, captures for transactions initiated through these payment methods are no longer possible outside of Russia.

As for RUB refunds: Please get in touch with your Account Manager or our Support team.

As for chargebacks, these are currently possible only for Mastercard as they have provided a 30-day window to submit chargebacks, as part of the wind-down of activities.

What are the restrictions on the sale of luxury goods in Russia?

Council Regulation (EU) 2022/428 amending Regulation (EU) No 833/2014, Article 3h prohibits the sale, supply, transfer or export, directly or indirectly, of luxury goods as listed in Annex XVIII, to any natural or legal person, entity or body in Russia or for use in Russia. The Annex XVIII lists specific goods that fall under this category and therefore are subject to restricted measures.

What is the error code for transactions that will be refused?

Authorization requests for the above-mentioned transactions will return a "907 - Payment details are not supported for this country/region / MCC combination" error as of May 31st, 2023.

What happens to capture, refund, and cancel requests after May 31st, 2023?

Captures, refunds and cancels for transactions authorized before May 31st, 2023 will still be processed.

How are luxury goods defined?

Please find the list of luxury goods in the Annex XVIII of the abovementioned regulation.

The definition in the Regulation is broad and includes goods that would not ordinarily be understood as luxury products, such as personal care products, electronic devices, vehicles, household goods and appliances, food products and normal articles of clothing, in addition to goods that would ordinarily be understood as luxury products. As a result, these prohibitions impact a broad range of merchants.

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