Visa and MasterCard have joined the growing list of Western financial firms that have announced plans to withdraw from Russia.

In search of alternatives, he told the Russian Central Bank it had switched to China’s “UnionPay” system.

President Vladimir Putin launched a special military operation against Ukraine less than two weeks ago, which continues to this day with no real end in sight for either side.

NATO and the European Union decided not to escalate the conflict by not getting directly involved in their own military actions.

Instead, they chose the twenty-first century option of imposing all kinds of sanctions against the state, the oligarchy, the people around Putin, and ordinary citizens.

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Most of those measures targeted the financial system of the Russian Federation.

Among the initial actions taken was the removal of several banks from the global SWIFT system.

Over the last weekend, it became known that some of the largest Western financial firms will also stop servicing the Russians, including Visa, MasterCard and PayPal.

While speculation is being raised about whether the local population will turn to cryptocurrencies, given the high volume of trading since the war began, the Russian Central Bank has identified another solution.

The institution said that local lenders will be able to use the Chinese “UnionPay” system.

Founded 20 years ago and headquartered in Shanghai, China, UnionPay (known as CUP or UPI internationally) operates in more than 180 countries, according to the Russian Central Bank.

It is also worth noting that the Russian Central Bank told that UnionPay can work in tandem with the Russian payment system – Mir.

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