MOSCOW, March 19. /TASS/. The Mir payment system does not limit work with Armenian banks, the press service for the National Payment Card System (NSPK), told TASS.
"The Mir payment system on its end is not restricting work with foreign partners. However, banks in other countries independently decide whether or not to accept Mir cards within the network of their devices," the press service said.
Earlier, RBC reported that cards of the Russian payment system Mir will no longer be accepted at the ATMs and POS terminals of most banks in Armenia from March 30.
Position of the Bank of Russia
"We continue to work with friendly countries accepting Mir cards in their infrastructure. However, each country makes the decision to accept cards independently," the press service of the Bank of Russia told TASS.
On the decision by Armenian banks
According to RBC, cards of the Russian payment system Mir will stop working at the ATMs and POS terminals of most banks in Armenia starting on March 30, 2024, with the exception of the infrastructure of VTB Armenia Bank (a subsidiary of the Russian VTB). Currently, Mir cards work in Armenia and are accepted by local banks.
In late February, Bereke Bank, former subsidiary of Sberbank and the Kazakh bank Freedom Finance, announced that it would terminate operations with cards of the Mir payment system.
On February 23, 2024, the US Department of the Treasury added the operator of the Mir payment system, NSPK JSC, to the sanctions list.
About Mir payment system
The Mir payment card was created after the United States imposed sanctions on Russia in the spring of 2014. Due to sanctions, on March 21, 2014, the two largest payment card systems - Visa and Mastercard - abruptly blocked transactions on the cards of some Russian banks. In December 2014, Visa and Mastercard stopped servicing bank cards in Crimea and Sevastopol (their work on the peninsula resumed in April 2015).
The same year, to avoid a repeat of this scenario, the joint-stock company National Payment Card System (NSPK) was created with two main goals: creating a center for processing domestic transactions on cards of international payment systems, as well as issuing and promoting a national payment card. Since 2015, all transactions with cards of the Visa and MasterCard systems have been carried out through the NSPK. The Mir payment card was developed in this environment.