Few days after halting onboarding of new members from Russia, US-based digital payment giant PayPal has taken its sanction to another level by suspending activities in the European nation.
The firm blocked several users and banks in Russia after sanctions were announced by the US and European countries in response to the invasion, a spokesperson for PayPal told the news agency.
PayPal, which is in many online casinos payment methods, initially focused on facilitating cross-border transactions and its Xoom service for international money transfers in Ukraine to support its users in the country. “Since this crisis began, PayPal has actively worked to enable donations to non-profit fundraising efforts in support of Ukrainian humanitarian relief efforts,” the payments firm had said.
However, this was met with criticism. Ukraine’s deputy minister for digital transformation Alexander Bornyakov urged PayPal to completely shut down its operations in Russia in an interview with Reuters.
Bornyakov was quoted as saying: “If PayPal supports democratic values, it should go out from Russia.”
The pressure mounted on PayPay after Visa and Mastercard blocked several Russian financial institutions from their payment network in the aftermath of sanctions. Apple Pay and Google Pay also limited their services in Russia. A host of fintech firms, including Wise, Paysera, Remitly, TransferGo and Zepz, also recently suspended their payment services to Russia.
“As a result of sanction orders, we have blocked multiple financial institutions from the Mastercard payment network,” Mastercard Chief Executive Michael Miebach had said in a statement released Monday night.
“We will continue to work with regulators in the days ahead to abide fully by our compliance obligations as they evolve.”
Visa said on its website that it is “taking prompt action to ensure compliance with applicable sanctions, and is prepared to comply with additional sanctions that may be implemented.”
We will continue to work with regulators in the days ahead to abide fully by our compliance obligations as they evolve.”
Visa said on its website that it is “taking prompt action to ensure compliance with applicable sanctions, and is prepared to comply with additional sanctions that may be implemented.”
Towing this path, PayPal said it had shut down its services early on Saturday in Russia, citing “the current circumstances,” joining many financial and tech companies in suspending operations there after the invasion of Ukraine. We still don’t know if several best Canadian online casino sites can be accessed from Russia.
“Under the current circumstances, we are suspending PayPal services in Russia,” President and Chief Executive Dan Schulman said in a statement. He added that the company “stands with the international community in condemning Russia’s violent military aggression in Ukraine.”
A company spokesperson said PayPal will support withdrawals “for a period of time, ensuring that account balances are dispersed in line with applicable laws and regulations.”
