Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

MasterCard suspends all services in Russia

mastercard.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 384 posts

Re: MasterCard suspends all services in Russia

#11

Post by lil_dispaches »

systemvoltage wrote: post #9

Do companies of this size already have the infrastructure built, a kill switch of the sorts, to turn off an entire country’s payment system? I’m thinking not just technology wise, but also things like existing subscriptions and contractual legal stuff between countries, customers, etc. It seems like a monumental undertaking to integrate payment systems for a new country, turning it off seems even more impressive.

I don't think this is act of war protest. These corporation know the inside score, they help write the narrative. I predict these companies are giving up Russia for good. This is a signal of a long term shift in world order and these corporate boards know it, because they engineer it with policies and propaganda.

Re: MasterCard suspends all services in Russia

#12

Post by 3np »

samwillis wrote: post #5

Mirror: https://archive.ph/d5RmA (was down) Key passage: “ With this action, cards issued by Russian banks will no longer be supported by the Mastercard network. And, any Mastercard issued outside of the country will not work at Russian merchants or ATMs.” I don’t believe it’s clear that cards issued in Russia are not still being accepted within Russia. Which is what I believe Visa is still doing: “ all transactions…

So individuals who recently left Russia out of fear for the regime and may be in very vulnerable positions have potentially unexpectedly lost access to their funds until they can sort that out...

Meanwhile, for The Real Russians, business as usual.

This looks like theatre hurting the wrong people.

Re: MasterCard suspends all services in Russia

#14

Post by youngNed »

savant_penguin wrote: post #7

"We’re undergoing site maintenance. But don’t worry — as there’s no impact to your ability to make Mastercard purchases or payments" Unless you're Russian I guess. As much as I enjoy the act this could backfire as a show of the tremendous power these companies have: shutting down credit card payments will likely impact large portions of online payments. But at the same time every extra inefficiency in the Russian eco…

> shutting down credit card payments will likely impact large portions of online payments.

I can't think of a way to reply to this without being trite or insulting, but genuinely, what do you think is the point of a sanction?

Re: MasterCard suspends all services in Russia

#15

Post by tmp_anon_22 »

systemvoltage wrote: post #9

Do companies of this size already have the infrastructure built, a kill switch of the sorts, to turn off an entire country’s payment system? I’m thinking not just technology wise, but also things like existing subscriptions and contractual legal stuff between countries, customers, etc. It seems like a monumental undertaking to integrate payment systems for a new country, turning it off seems even more impressive.

Sanctions aren't new, any sufficiently large international company likely has dealt with this before. And it doesn't happen all at once, you start by turning off new registrants, then you go through records of existing entities that need to be turned off and turn them off, then you continue to watch for whatever you missed.

Re: MasterCard suspends all services in Russia

#16

Post by hadrien01 »

tananaev wrote: post #4
323 wrote: post #2

Visa too: > Visa Suspends All Russia Operations https://usa.visa.com/about-visa/newsroom/press-releases.rele... MasterCard/Visa cards issued in Russia will not work abroad, cards issued abroad will not work in Russia. > MasterCard/Visa account for three-quarters of payments in Russia https://twitter.com/spectatorindex/status/150023911662537932...

Interesting that the title says all operations are suspended, but description basically says that foreign cards won't work in Russia and Russian cards work abroad, but does it mean local Russian cards will still work in Russia? That's probably majority of transactions anyway. A bit confused here.

Russia has a home-grown card payment network (Mir) that accounts for 25% of payments. It will probably grow because of the sanctions.

Edit: 25% might be false. Maybe 25% of cards are Mir-only? I'd appreciate if any Russian could chime in to clarify the percentages.

Post reply on HN