US government sanctions require the world’s leading retail-payment networks Mastercard and Visa to stop serving Russian banks listed as Specially Designated Nationals. There are 3.8 billion and 2.6 billion Visa and Mastercard cards, respectively, worldwide. Three hundred million of them are issued by Russian banks.
The global payment networks went further, blocking all cross-border payments and cash withdrawals on their cards from and to Russia. For example, French Mastercard cardholders won’t be able to pay Russia-domiciled merchants in-person or online. Russian Mastercard cardholders won’t be able to pay for hotels and restaurants in-person or online or to withdraw cash at ATMs in NYC. American businesses and consumers will be hurt. Pain will be incurred to inflict pain.
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