while this action is clear based on the sanctions, MasterCard, Visa and Paypal have not done themselves any favors based on the past actions of acting cartel like in other situations which were not based on sanctions.
It is easy (for me anyway) to see how some people could consider their actions to be in the same vein of their previous attempts to regulate the speech and actions of private individuals they find politically disagreeable. MC and Paypal being the much bigger offenders of that...
Thanks for implying I don't know what an economic sanction is. I do not believe this is part of the economic sanctions announced by gvts. This is a private initiative.
Apologies for any confusion, I wasn't implying, I was *stating* that you have no idea what economic sanctions are.
"As a result of sanction orders, we have blocked multiple financial institutions from the Mastercard payment network. We will continue to work with regulators in the days ahead to abide fully by our compliance obligations as they evolve."
An article from yesterday regarding SWIFT explained this. The western govs issued a "commander's intent" to sanction Russia.
That's basically a direction that every financial entity which does transactions with Russia must assume that they too should suspend operations, unless explicitly cleared otherwise.
Russia was declared "untouchable", unless you have explicit permission to touch it (like energy markets).
I don’t think that’s true. Otherwise, Mastercard/Visa/Paypal wouldn’t have waited this long.
I think Russia is being ‘canceled’. They have become toxic to companies. It’s PR related, not because of government orders.
Dealing with Russia is now problematic for top level corporate management and attention of top level management is always a scarce resource. General rule products and customers that require too much of it for the profits generated get the axe.
Russia is about to get a lot poorer. So any business you have with Russia is going to shrink.
No, it's the exact same meaning as when it happens to a person. What vkou said.
https://twitter.com/ConallLaverty/status/1499414982429224974
Almost none of these companies left because of sanctions, they left voluntary. Companies could still get paid without swift access if they wanted to, that's not the issue. Doing business in Russia has become toxic. It's a race to get out.
In this context when one actor pulls out, the eyes turn on the others who either pull out or will have to accept being seen as supporting the regime. The coordination doesn’t have to exist for it to look coordinated. No one wants to be seen as late to leave.
Plus the longer you stay, the more the value of ruble, and exchange rates drops and stocks/etc of those affiliated w/ the sinking ship that is Russia, the more likely you are to be holding the 'hot potato' and lose the most money when everything drops....in other words better to get going while the going is good.
It also takes time to interpret how the sanctions affect an industry and what actions need to be taken, and those interpretations are going to be pretty correlated.
I remember reading an analysis of (I believe) WWI that said that by that point, the rulers of Europe had successfully completed the hard work of discouraging war among themselves through a long-term project of intermarriage. They were all related to each other and therefore mostly uninterested in going to war against each other.[1]
But at some point popular demand for war started to rise and the noble houses weren't able to stop it.
We're seeing something similar here.
[1] This can't be the whole story; European history is replete with brother-brother and father-son wars. But I think the idea is worth considering anyway.
Nothing new here. The large tech and financial corporations have moved in lockstep for a long time, and the rest of the Fortune 500 isn't far behind. The average person and small business is rapidly losing the right to transact.
> It does feel coordinated. I know corporate law is kind of irrelevant in a context of war, but it feels more than ever like a cartel.
You don't need a cartel to coordinate. If someone shoots a gun and everyone ducks, their ducking was coordinated by the gunshot. They didn't need to get together and have a discussion to all duck together at the same time.
It does feel coordinated. I know corporate law is kind of irrelevant in a context of war, but it feels more than ever like a cartel.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/business/paypal-shuts-down-its-servi...