In 2014, Gennady Timchenko, a billionaire businessman and an ally of Russia president Vladimir Putin, sang the praises of a new UnionPay card he obtained after sanctions rendered his Visa and Mastercards useless.
“It works perfectly,” he told Russian news agency Tass. “And it is accepted in a lot of places. In some sense, it will be more reliable than Visa. At least the Americans won’t be able to grab it.”
Timchenko’s wallet refresh mirrors Putin’s larger push to reshape his country’s payments system after western sanctions were imposed on Russian banks following the 2014 invasion of Crimea.
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