> Visa and Mastercard moved swiftly to suspend their operations, preventing overseas payments by Russian cardholders and halting foreigners from making transact

> Visa and Mastercard moved swiftly to suspend their operations, preventing overseas payments by Russian cardholders and halting foreigners from making transactions on Russian soil. > Russia’s central bank, ready for this sort of crisis, had previously created the National Payment Card System to process transactions domestically, even if the cards carried a Visa or Mastercard logo. This workaround meant consumers could continue to make payments locally after the invasion. Not knowing much about how Visa/MC works internally, how is this technically possible? I thought both companies had most of the control over their networks, and if Visa/MC says "Charge rejected", then that's the outcome. But here it seems like the Central Bank was able to still be able to process the cards at least domestically, but unclear exactly how.