March 24, 2014. Visa and MasterCard blocked all of SMP Bank’s card transactions this morning without any preliminary warning, the lending institution’s press service reports.

‘Our customers, however, can take out any amount of money via our ATMs and cash desks as well as via any of the 23,000 ATMs that the United Settlement System comprises,’ the bank reports.

All the other transactions, including cashing in on deposits and payment transactions, are available as usual and without any restrictions. The bank has not been informed on cancellation of services on the correspondent accounts abroad or shutting up of its credit lines.

The bank’s press service also points out that SPM Bank does not own any assets in the United States.

‘As these sanctions touched upon the shareholders themselves and not the bank as such, we feel these actions are unjustified and we are also positive that this difficulty will be resolved in the nearest future. We are very grateful to our customers for their understanding,’ the bank says.

SMP Bank actually runs an office in Yekaterinburg.