Visa & MasterCard will not operate in Russia: Crypto is now a better option
iant payment network Visa and MasterCard joined PayPal to restrict the payment services to Russia, to follow the rules of Sanctions imposed on Russia by EU & US.
Today is 11th day of the Russia vs Ukraine war and in this situation, Ukraine is standing alone to fight against the giant military power of Russia. The majority of the countries are supporting Ukraine through their Sanctions on Russia in different ways, to isolate Russia from the global economy.
On 5 March, Visa published a blog and confirmed that it will not operate its services in Russia and also it will restrict the operations of issued cards in the Russian Federation (inside as well as outside of Russia).
Through the blog post, Visa indirectly stated that such actions are just part of the efforts to bring peace among these two countries.
“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.”
On the same day, MasterCard also announced to restrict its services and operations related to Russia.
MasterCard confirmed that it will suspend all the support for the issued MasterCard cards by Russian institutions including merchant support as well as ATM card support.
Besides these decisions, PayPal is also reportedly planning to shut down its operations in the Russian federation. In an interview, an executive of PayPal confirmed that seizure of its services will “ensure that account balances are dispersed in line with applicable laws.”
Crypto is only a solution
In the present time, almost every financial service outside of Russia is trying to slow down the war efforts between these two countries with the suspension of their services.
In this situation, Russia needed a fully decentralized medium of the financial system and it is the crypto and Blockchain industry only as an alternative.
To some extent, Russia can fulfill its demand through cryptocurrency use but surely self-custodial crypto services will work because all other centralized crypto companies will be legally not allowed to support Russia.
However, this situation is forcing Russia to adopt Bitcoin-like Currencies as a payment tool but the Central Bank of Russia is continuously showing its hate against Bitcoin & crypto.
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