After Visa and Mastercard, now American payment company PayPal Holding Inc has ceased its operations in Russia, citing Moscow’s “violent military aggression in Ukraine”, PayPal President and CEO Dan Schulman said in a letter to the Ukrainian government on Monday. “PayPal supports the Ukrainian people and stands with the international community in condemning Russia’s violent military aggression in Ukraine,” the letter addressed to Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Mykhailo Fedorov, who is also the Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, said.
Schulman also said in the letter that PayPal will extend help to affected staff in the region. The letter read, “Under the current circumstances, we are suspending PayPal services in Russia. We are also doing all that we can to support our staff in the region during this deeply difficult time.”
Earlier on Saturday, American financial services giants Mastercard and Visa had also announced the suspension of their services in Russia in view of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and said that their cards issued by Russian banks will no longer work outside the country.
“Effective immediately, Visa will work with its clients and partners within Russia to cease all Visa transactions over the coming days. Once complete, 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,” Visa said in its statement.
Mastercard also issued a statement on Saturday and said, “This decision flows from our recent action to block multiple financial institutions from the Mastercard payment network, as required by regulators globally.”
