Speed Reads
eyes on russia
Visa, MasterCard stop servicing Crimea after sanctions
Visa and MasterCard, the world's two biggest payment networks, both announced Friday they're stopping services in Crimea, Bloomberg Businessweek reports.
"Visa is now prohibited from offering Visa-branded products and services to Crimea," the company said in a statement. "This means that we can no longer support card-issuing and merchant/ATM acquiring services in Crimea."
The move comes after a recent executive order from President Barack Obama. The U.S. has been imposing sanctions since Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in March.