The current Russia and Ukrainian war resulted in various economic sanctions being issued against Russia in the past weeks. These sanctions target Russian entities, and specific high-profile individuals, the Russian Central Bank, some Russian banks, and Belarussian individuals, entities, and banks. 

The restrictions include blocking the sanctioned Russian banks' access to the SWIFT system. The block was implemented on 12th March 2022. The EU has indicated that the SWIFT restrictions could be expanded to other Russian banks, depending on Russia's behaviour. Visa and Mastercard have also indicated that they will no longer accept transactions involving Russia.

Because of the above, FirstRand informed Stellenbosch University that they wouldn't process any transactions to or from Russia, whether to an individual or juristic entity.​

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