MOSCOW: Russia moved to prevent the US payment card firms Mastercard and Visa quitting Russia by pledging to reduce the size of the deposit required for them to operate in the country.
New rules imposed on foreign card companies following Western sanctions over Ukraine required the payment operators to deposit collateral with the central bank worth two days of their average processing volume in Russia, in eight quarterly instalments.
Both companies considered quitting Russia after President Vladimir Putin signed the rules into law in early May, but said they would stay after officials showed a willingness to relax the requirements.
The lower house of Parliament, the State Duma, yesterday began discussing amendments to soften the law. First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said the deposit payment would be “significantly reduced”.
“We expect that the actions we are taking will calm the situation with Visa and Mastercard,” he said. Reuters
