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The MICEX benchmark was down 2 per cent in midday trading Friday with the companies co-owned by the Russians sanctioned by the White House leading the decline. The Russian stock market has lost than more 10 per cent this month.

As Russian stocks were feeling the heat, two Russian banks including Bank Rossiya, the Russian lender which was put on the Treasury’s sanctions list, said Visa and MasterCard stopped providing services to them. U.S. officials described Russia’s 15th largest bank with $12 billion in assets as a “personal bank for senior officials of the Russian Federation.”

And clients of another Russian lender, SMP, woke up Friday to discover that they cannot use their cards. In a statement, it said Visa and MasterCard stopped providing their services to them “without prior notification.” SMP’s co-owners, Arkady and Boris Rotenberg — billionaire brothers and childhood friends of Putin — were hit by the U.S. sanctions on Thursday.

The bank, which is in Russia’s top 40 with $5 billion in assets, said it had no assets in the United States and described Visa and MasterCard’s actions as “illegitimate” because the bank, unlike its owners, was not covered by the sanctions.

As a result, customers in the two banks won’t be able to use cards backed by Visa and MasterCard to buy products in shops online or withdraw cash from ATMs beyond their own bank’s. They can also get cash directly inside their banks’ branches.

President Putin on Friday ordered the country’s central bank to help clients of Rossiya. He denied having an account there but ordered the Central Bank to “take the bank’s clients under protection and provide all possible assistance to them,” according to the Interfax news agency.