Visa* has prohibited banks in countries bordering Russia from opening accounts for Russians. And she promised a million dollar fine for each card to those who disobey.
Visa management sent out a warning by mail. Clarify: it is prohibited to issue cards for those owners passports of the Russian Federation, who is not a resident of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and so on.
The banks themselves say that this applies to all Russians. Thus, all foreign banks are now prohibited from issuing bank cards to residents of Russia. In connection with such events, financial institutions of Kazakhstan have already announced that Russians will now be able to receive a Visa card only if they have temporary or permanent registration in the country, or a residence permit. In the absence of such grounds, the issuance of a bank card will be refused, that is, it will not be possible to obtain it in any way. It is obvious that the Mastercard system may soon do the same, and if this happens, then Russians will have to forget about access to the services of these payment systems. This, in turn, will entail big problems for those who travel to other countries or simply make purchases in foreign online stores, because they will have to pay in cash, and this is not only not always possible, but also inconvenient.
In the spring of 2022, Visa and Mastercard announced their withdrawal from the Russian market, and in such a way that all the bank cards they had already issued for Russian financial institutions were simply disconnected from the system. As a result, since then, Russian cards have worked exclusively within the country, and it is not possible to use such cards in other countries. Since Russian Mir cards do not work almost anywhere outside the Russian Federation, Russians traveled en masse to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Serbia, Armenia, Georgia and other countries, doing this in order to open an account in a local bank and get a local Visa bank card or Mastercard. However, you won’t be able to get one anymore, at least not as easily and simply as it could have been done before.
*Visa Inc. is an American transnational company providing payment transaction services. It is the basis of the association of the same name. Since September 20, 2013, the price of its shares has been included in the calculation of the Dow Jones index. VISA International Service Association is an international payment system.
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