Russia Built Parallel Payments System That Escaped Western Sanctions

How effective are the economic sanctions against Russia? What are the consequences of such economic sanctions?

"Western sanctions have [not affected] at least one big part of Russia’s financial world: its domestic-payments system. Even after Visa and Mastercard pulled out of the country earlier this month ... most locals were still able to use their credit cards within national borders. That’s because of Russia’s yearslong effort to develop a homegrown system of processing payments, known by the Russian initials NSPK. The Kremlin also has aggressively promoted Russia’s own card company, called Mir, which is built on NSPK’s infrastructure. ... Countries including China, Turkey and India have also developed their own payments infrastructure in recent years."

"The domestic-payments system continued to work smoothly after Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. pulled out earlier this month. ..."

Russia Built Parallel Payments System That Escaped Western Sanctions - WSJ Crimea sanctions [around 2014?] spurred Russia to build its own Mir payments network, taking the sting out of Visa, Mastercard exits