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Visa and Mastercard are suspending operations in Russia, the companies announced Saturday, citing the country’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
According to a press statement, Visa will begin working to discontinue transactions in Russia, but it will take a few days. Mastercard said it would suspend all its network services in Russia, which sent military forces into Ukraine at the end of February.
“Once complete, all transactions initiated with Visa cards issued in Russia will no longer work outside the country and any Visa cards issued by financial institutions outside of Russia will no longer work within the Russian Federation,” said Visa’s statement.
In the press release, Visa Inc. Chairman and CEO Al Kelly said that the company “was compelled to act following Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, and the unacceptable events that we have witnessed. We regret the impact this will have on our valued colleagues, and on the clients, partners, merchants and cardholders we serve in Russia. This war and the ongoing threat to peace and stability demand we respond in line with our values.”
Similarly, Mastercard said that in addition to blocking some Russian financial institutions, it will end support for any cards issued by Russian banks and block transactions from cards issued outside Russia but used “at Russian merchants or ATMs.”
Visa’s and Mastercard’s announcements came hours after PayPal halted its services in Russia.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov tweeted a letter early Saturday from PayPal CEO Dan Schulman, announcing: “Under the current circumstances, we are suspending PayPal services in Russia.”
He added that PayPal would continue to support its staff in the region and would focus on “enabling our customers and our global employee community to support” humanitarian efforts in Ukraine.
In a call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President Joe Biden welcomed the companies’ decisions.
“President Biden noted his administration is urging security, humanitarian, and economic assistance to Ukraine and is working closely with Congress to secure additional funding,” a White House readout of the call said.
