Moscow - Kyiv, December 29 (PolitNavigator, Mikhail Stamm) - Russia will swallow the financial blockade of Crimea with the international payment systems (IPS) Visa and MasterCard, Russian Financial Ombudsman Pavel Medvedev is sure. According to him, the Ministry of Finance is afraid of the Ministry of Railways leaving Russia altogether and will not allow this. Of course, affected cardholders in Crimea will not receive any compensation. "Independent newspaper" connects this with American lobbying and reminds readers how they “bent over” Russian officials who tried to get rid of the dictates of Visa and MasterCard back in 2010.
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The first refusal to serve Russian clients occurred back in March, the publication recalls. And the Russian authorities responded to it very convincingly - they ordered Visa and MasterCard to freeze the so-called security deposit of several billion dollars in the accounts of the Central Bank. But after this, lobbyists for international payment systems obtained significant relief from the Russian government. Therefore, the affected Visa and MasterCard cardholders will not receive any compensation this time. Whether the Russian authorities will tolerate another slap in the face from the Ministry of Railways will soon be seen, the newspaper argues.
The current history of relaxations for the Ministry of Railways is not the first time that foreign companies are seeking a revision of inconvenient Russian laws on the national payment system. Back in 2010, a bill was prepared that prohibited servicing domestic payments from abroad. However, then the lobbyists of the Ministry of Railways achieved the abolition of this requirement, as the English newspaper Guardian wrote about in detail in December 2010. With reference to WikiLeaks, the publication wrote about the lobbying efforts of the American Embassy, whose employees sought to preserve the income of Visa and MasterCard. “We recommend that senior U.S. government officials take advantage of meetings with their Russian counterparts ... and put pressure on Russian government officials to change the bill in such a way as to ensure that the interests of U.S. payment companies are not harmed,” U.S. diplomats reported in 2010.
In Russia, it seems that many have already come to terms with the dictates of the Ministry of Railways. According to financial ombudsman Pavel Medvedev, the Russian government in the current conditions is unlikely to react sharply to the card blockade of Crimea. “The financial unit in the government will act rationally. They understand how the situation could collapse if the Ministry of Railways leaves Russia, and they will not allow this,” the expert notes.