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Mastercard and Visa have blocked multiple financial institutions from their payment networks in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The actions by the card schemes comes just days after Western allies agreed measures to exclude Russian banks from the Swift messaging network amid a slew of new financial sanctions.
In a statement, Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach says: “As a result of sanction orders, we have blocked multiple financial institutions from the Mastercard payment network. We will continue to work with regulators in the days ahead to abide fully by our compliance obligations as they evolve.”
Visa says it has also blocked sanctioned banks from its payment rails.
The two companies have also made donations of $2 million apiece to the Red Cross, Save the Children and employee assistance funds for humanitarian relief.
Miebach says Mastercard is also stepping up its cybersecurity monitoring, “the threat of which is heightened significantly in the present environment”.
In the world of fintech, money transfer network Wise and neobank N26 have each placed a daily £200 transaction limit on transfers to Russia, while Paysera has stopped processing any transactions to Russian accounts.
Financial Services
