US warns Serbia over Dina card payments at NIS petrol stations - Vucic
Oct 20, 2025, 11:30:45 AMArticle by <https://seenews.com/news/authors/615> Valentina Bajic October 20 (SeeNews) - The U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has warned Serbia's central bank, NBS, over the continued acceptance of Dina card payments at NIS petrol stations, following the enforcement of sanctions on the Russian-controlled oil and gas company, Serbia's president Aleksandar Vucic said. Photo by NIS After the U.S. sanctions on NIS took effect <https://seenews.com/news/serbias-sole-refiner-nis-denied-new-u-s-sanctions-waiver-1282972> on October 8, Visa, Mastercard and American Express payments were suspended at the company's petrol stations. Payments can still be made using cash, Dina - Serbia's national payment card, mobile banking apps, or the IPS instant payment system, according to NIS's website. In a televised interview with Pink TV late on Friday, Vucic said Serbia will request OFAC to allow payments via Dina cards at least for a while longer, adding that there are no issues with cash payments. "The market will be well supplied and people don't have to worry about that," Vucic noted. NIS [BEL:NIIS <https://www.belex.rs/trgovanje/hartija/dnevni/NIIS> ] operates Serbia's sole oil refinery as well as the largest fuel retail network in the country, with 328 filling stations. In the first half of 2025, the company's share of the motor fuel market in Serbia stood at 66%, while its share in the retail market was at 48%, according to its financial statement for the period. After the U.S. sanctions were enforced, NIS said <https://seenews.com/news/serbias-sole-refiner-nis-denied-new-u-s-sanctions-waiver-1282972> payments for wholesale transactions would still be accepted in dinars. Outside Serbia, NIS has 42 petrol stations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 22 in Bulgaria <https://seenews.com/news/uni-energy-cleared-to-buy-nis-petrol-bulgaria-1282584> , and 19 in Romania. Explore SeeNext's new Digitalisation study and index. Download now for free! <https://seenext.org/reports/digitalisation-4-0-in-southeast-europe-2025-edition/> The U.S. Treasury Department announced <https://seenews.com/news/u-s-sanctions-serbias-sole-refiner-nis-1269175> sanctions on NIS in January over its Russian ownership, as part of a wider package of restrictions targeting Russia's energy sector over the war in Ukraine. Before coming into effect, the sanctions on NIS were delayed <https://seenews.com/news/u-s-grants-serbias-nis-another-brief-sanctions-reprieve-vucic-1282329> eight times. NIS is 44.85% owned by Gazprom Neft. Serbia's government has 29.87% ownership, and St. Petersburg-based Intelligence <http://seenews.com/news/update-1-russian-company-intelligence-gets-11-3-percent-stake-in-serbias-nis-1281931> , a company ultimately controlled by Gazprom, has 11.3%. The remainder belongs to a number of minority shareholders. https://seenews.com/news/us-warns-serbia-over-dina-card-payments-at-nis-petrol-stations-vucic-1283514 -- http:www.antic.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "SERBIAN NEWS NETWORK" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/senet/026e01dc41e4%2447da9ad0%24d78fd070%24%40gmail.com.
