The international payment system Mastercard has decided to block access to its network for some Russian organizations.

This was announced on Tuesday, March 1, by the company's CEO Michael Mibach.

“In view of the sanctions rulings, access to the Mastercard payment network for a number of financial institutions has been blocked.

In the coming days, we will continue to work with regulators to fully meet our compliance obligations as they change,” the CEO said.

The Visa international payment system is also preparing to comply with the sanctions regime against Russia.

Relevant information is published on the official website of the organization.

Visa is taking prompt action to ensure compliance with applicable sanctions and is prepared to comply with additional restrictive measures that may be introduced.

It is assumed that the Russian banks that have fallen under the sanctions will no longer issue new Visa and Mastercard cards after the expiration of the existing ones.

In addition, cardholders of these payment systems will not be able to pay abroad, transfer money abroad and pay for purchases in foreign online stores.

At the same time, all transactions within Russia will continue to be available.

This was reported to RT in the press service of the National Payment Card System (NSPK).

“With Visa and Mastercard international payment systems cards issued by Russian banks, all transactions within our country will continue to work.

Such transactions will be processed by the National Payment Card System as usual.

The funds of all bank customers have been saved in the accounts, all operations are available,” the NSPK stressed.

The organization added that customers of banks that fell under the sanctions will not be able to pay for purchases using Apple Pay and Google Pay services.

Nevertheless, standard contact or contactless payment with the cards of these credit institutions is available in full on the territory of Russia.

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Earlier, against the backdrop of the start of the Russian military special operation in Ukraine, the United States, together with its allies, announced the introduction of a number of restrictions on Moscow.

Restrictions mainly affected the banking sector.

In particular, Sberbank was under US sanctions.

Within a month, all financial institutions in the United States will have to close correspondent accounts with the organization and subsequently reject any transactions involving the bank.

All dollar payments that Sberbank attempts to make to its customers must also be rejected when they reach US banks.

In addition, the US authorities banned Sberbank from raising money on the US capital market.

It was decided to impose a similar restriction on Gazprombank, Rosselkhozbank, Alfa-Bank and Moscow Credit Bank.

In addition, the US has imposed so-called blocking sanctions against VTB, Promsvyazbank, FC Otkritie, Sovcombank, Novikombank.

American companies will be banned from working with these organizations, and their assets in the US will be frozen.

Also, Western countries announced plans to disconnect several Russian banks from the SWIFT international financial messaging system.

However, the final list of organizations subject to these restrictions has not yet been officially presented.

“The situation will remain in limbo until SWIFT receives legal guidance.

Most likely, those banks that are already under blocking sanctions will be affected.

First, they will be disconnected from SWIFT, and then automatically from payment systems, ”said Nikita Maslennikov, head of the Finance and Economics department at the Institute of Contemporary Development, in an interview with RT.

At the same time, as the expert emphasized, the West cannot technically prohibit the use of Visa or Mastercard cards in Russia.

Against this background, all payments and settlements of citizens and legal entities in the country will not be affected, the expert assured.

“Such a development of events was expected, therefore, even after the Crimean events of 2014, the Bank of Russia began to actively work in this direction.

Now, from the point of view of payments, settlements and transfers, our banking system, financial market and citizens are almost completely protected,” Maslennikov emphasized.

Recall that in 2016 Russia began issuing cards of the MIR payment system.

According to the latest data from the Central Bank, more than 108 million such cards have already been issued in the country, and they account for 25.2% of all card transactions.

“All transactions with MIR payment system cards are available to bank customers in full.

Cardholders of the MIR payment system can also use the Mir Pay service for Android-based smartphones that support NFC technology to make payments.

Today, more than 80 Russian banks, including the largest ones, can connect MIR cards to it,” the NSPK noted.