The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has sent bank doing business with Russian payment systems a telegram telling them to stop, chief of NBU's payment systems oversight bureau Olena Makhayeva has said.

"The NBU sent a telegram to each bank belonging to these payment systems about stopping transactions via Russian payment systems and settling all accounts with them," she said during a press conference on Wednesday.

The NBU said the telegram did not set a date for settling accounts in order to allow the banks to comply in an orderly manner. The central bank also obliged banks to return to the regulator NBU authorizations to work with the payment systems issued prior to 2014. The NBU has not authorized banking transactions with Russian payments systems since 2015.

As earlier reported, Ukraine has extended sanctions against the Russian Federation. They include measures to curtail the activities of a number of Russian payment systems listed in recent presidential decree No. 467/2016.

According to the decree, transactions involving Russian payment system "Gold Crown" (Zolotaya Korona), belonging to the payment organization "Payment center" are to be curtailed, along with Unistream, the international payment system Kolibri (earlier known as Blitz), Leader, Anelik and Blizko (managed by Svyaz Bank).