MOSCOW--The fresh round of U.S. sanctions against Moscow won't
affect operations of card giants Visa and MasterCard in Russia, the
two companies said Thursday.
A few Russian banks faced disruptions with bank-card payments
with Visa and MasterCard in March this year, after the U.S.
enforced sanctions in response to Russia's annexation of Crimea. To
prevent it happening again the Russian parliament passed a law
forcing the two companies to keep hundreds of millions of dollars
at the Bank of Russia as collateral against any future freeze.
This time the card companies are sticking to a more careful
approach.
"The new sanctions package does not affect Visa operations in
Russia. We keep on processing transactions in a normal mode," a
spokesman for Visa said Thursday.
MasterCard also continues to operate in the same manner as
before the recent sanctions, Russian agencies reported.
The government has already indicated that the laws relating to
how Visa and Mastercard operate will be amended and the level of
requirements and restrictions will be lowered significantly.
The central bank stands ready to provide any necessary liquidity
to the banking system which has been troubled by the recent
addition of state-run Gazprombank being added to the new sanctions
list. However, new sanctions against Gazprombank aren't as harsh as
they were previously. The latest penalty only limits the bank's
ability to borrow abroad. Previously, the list already had Bank
Rossiya and its affiliated partner SMP, which were banned from the
global banking system, as their foreign accounts were frozen.
Write to andrey.ostroukh@wsj.com