(Reuters) – U.S. payment card specialists Visa and Mastercard said on Saturday they would suspend operations in Russia after the invasion of Ukraine, prompting Russian banks to migrate to China’s UnionPay payment card system.
In the coming days, all transactions initiated with Visa cards issued in Russia will no longer work outside the country and all Visa cards issued outside of Russia will no longer work in the country, the company said.
“We are compelled to act in the wake of Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, and the unacceptable events we have witnessed,” Visa’s chief executive Al Kelly said in a statement.
Mastercard has clarified that cards issued by Russian banks will no longer be supported by its network and that cards issued by financial institutions outside Russia will no longer work at Russian distributors and merchants.
According to the Russian news agency Tass, Russian bank Sberbank, the country’s largest bank, said the sanctions announced by Visa and Mastercard would not affect users of the cards it issues in Russia.
After the announcements by Visa and Mastercard, several Russian banks, including Sberbank, Alfa Bank and Tinkoff, announced that they would soon start issuing payment cards using the Chinese UnionPay system coupled with the Russian Mir network.
(Report Akanksha Khushi; French version Camille Raynaud)
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