Russian stock indexes fell sharply on Friday as investors digested the impact of the sanctions on Ukraine.<br /><br />The rouble-denominated MICEX was down 3 percent while the dollar-denominated RTS index had fallen 3.6 percent.<br /><br />Negative market sentiment was reinforced by warnings from<br />ratings agencies Fitch and Standard & Poor’s. They’ve both downgraded the outlook for Russia’s sovereign debt from “stable” to “negative.” <br /><br />Russia’s Deputy Finance Minister had said that he did not see any immediate impact from sanctions on Russia’s financial sector or creditworthiness.<br /><br />On Friday, Visa and Mastercard stopped authorising point-of-sale transactions for Bank Rossiya, which is on the list of targeted economic sanctions leaving many cardholders in shops with declined purchases. <br /><br />The sanctions against Bank Rossiya has raised fears that similar actions could be taken against other Russian banks, echoing US measures against Iran or Syria.
