Visa and MasterCard have announced they have stopped providing services for payment transactions for clients at Russia’s SMP Bank without notification or warning.
Russia’s SMP Bank whose main shareholders were hit by US sanctions this week.
Washington imposed additional sanctions against 20 Russians for their involvement in the Ukraine crisis; these include Boris Rotenberg and his older brother Arkady, who are the co-owners of SMP Bank as they received large contracts for the Sochi Winter Olympics.
“Due to the fact that the sanctions were imposed on shareholders and not on the bank, we consider the moves by the payment systems unlawful and we are confident that we can resolve the encountered difficulties in the near future.” the bank said in a statement.
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