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 initiated with Visa cards issued in Russia will no longer work outside the country and any Visa cards issued by financial institutions outside of Russia will no longer work within the Russian Federation.”
https://usa.visa.com/about-visa/newsroom/press-releases.rele...
If MasterCard is matching Visa it’s effectively cross border transactions that have stopped - not withdraw access to Russian issued cards within Russia.
If they have withdrawn access to Russian cards within Russia it’s going to put enormous pressure on Russian citizens. Visa and Mastercard apparently have 73% of the credit card market in Russia. This could be the type of pressure need for citizens to push back at the Russian administration (not that they aren’t already).