> One way VISA/MC could strike against this law is by simply cutting off all Russian cc's. That would hurt them as well but they could simply stop doing business there for a week or so. I think that Putin would very quickly recant once it becomes evident how much of the Russian economy is now dependent on such instruments.

They already did that, to Bank Rossiya. This move by Russians is a retaliation for that.

> The new Russian owned payment system is dead in the water from a non-Russian perspective, the only reason VISA and MC are so popular in Russia is because people do not trust local alternatives, not because they don't have other options.

The reason why VISA and MC are so popular is because there is nothing else. Not only in Russia, but in other countries too. (Note that Maestro is owned and operated by MC).

I mean across the board.

JCB, AMEX, Discover and a bunch of others would disagree.

"Nothing" as for large values of nothing.

JCB, AMEX, Discover are virtually unusable outside NA. Yes, you might find a restaurant or two that do accept Discover, but you cannot rely on that. Just like you cannot rely on Maestro in NA, for example.

VISA and MC are the only two accepted somewhat worldwide. Even VISA has work to do, to expand their coverage (e.g. Austria and Germany; they are not as universally accepted as Maestro or local "bank cards").

Regarding Europe, Visa and the dirty tricks, see London 2012:

http://www.geek.com/news/visa-is-the-exclusive-payment-partn...

The level of acceptance of those cards, globally, is tiny compared to Visa/Mastercard.

But it is a lot higher than any Russia only card will ever be.

The way the U.S. economy is dealing with this is through adoption of other payment processors.

But any entity which fulfills the functions of a bank will pose these problems, especially with high market penetration...

At least in the West there is something like due process, which is enough to put an upper limit on the abuse these companies can dish out.

Due process is a concept that applies (or is supposed to apply) to governments. It does not apply to private financial services companies. Politicians have realised this and are now aggressively and vigorously violating it by stepping outside the regular judicial system and simply scaring banks/card companies into stopping business with anyone said politicians don't like.

It wasn't Russia that started this trend. It was America.

Due process does apply to contract disputes.

There is very scarce evidence that politicians in the US have used this technique against "businesses they don't like"...