MOSCOW, October 23. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law on Thursday delaying the deadline for security deposit payments by Visa, MasterCard and other international card systems.

The document, which was approved by both houses of Russia’s parliament, was published on the government’s legal information web portal on Thursday.

Deputy Chairman of the Budget and Financial Market Committee at the Federation Council (the upper house of Russia’s parliament) Nikolay Zhuravlyov earlier said the law would extend the deadline for calculating and paying security deposits to the first and second quarters of 2015.

The senator said the delay in security deposit payments was needed for a transitional period to transfer international payment card processing to the operational center and the payment clearing center based on Russia’s national payment card system.

Visa and MasterCard earlier stopped servicing cards of some Russian banks hit by US sanctions. Russia’s parliament passed a law on establishing a national payment card system, obliging international payment operators to pay security deposits totaling their two-day turnover.

Russian Central Bank Deputy Chairwoman Tatiana Chugunova said earlier the international payment operators’ security deposits amounted to $200-300 million per quarter.

The international payment systems Amex, JCB, MasterCard and Visa said they are ready to operate in Russia through the national payment card processing center.