BISHKEK, April 4. /TASS/. Kyrgyzstan’s financial institutions will temporarily suspend the acceptance and servicing of bank cards linked to Russia’s Mir payment system, Kyrgyz Prime Minister Akylbek Japarov said.
"We have temporarily suspended [servicing of the Mir card]. We have a number of mechanisms and measures [regarding this issue]," he said, speaking before the Central Asian country’s parliament, adding that the government cannot yet disclose the relevant technical solutions.
According to Japarov, Kyrgyzstan was compelled to cease servicing the Mir card due to pressure by a Latvian company that is engaged in servicing the country's interbank processing center.
"The software and maintenance of the interbank processing center is provided by a Latvian company. It sent us a letter saying that if the interaction with the Mir card [managed by] Russia’s NSPK [National Payment Card System] is not suspended, it will turn off the interbank processing center," he said.
The prime minister also said that in mid-April he would visit the United States, where he plans to explain that Kyrgyzstan simply cannot terminate its trade and economic relations with Russia.
"I will have a series of meetings in April. Namely, on April 14 and 20 there will be a big presentation of the Kambar-Ata-1 [hydroelectric power plant] in Washington, where I will seek to explain the situation, that we cannot completely stop our trade and economic relations with the Russian Federation; it is our strategic partner," he said.
Japarov added that Western countries know that Kyrgyzstan and Russia are part of a single economic space. "We are in a single economic space. We receive two-and-a-half billion dollars almost every year [in remittances] from our migrants. Our Western partners know this," he noted, adding that Kyrgyz banks and Russian banks are currently continuing to work with each other.
On Tuesday, the operator of Kyrgyzstan’s national payment system, Elcart, announced that cards issued under the Russian payment system Mir will no longer work in the Central Asian country effective April 5, due to sanctions imposed by the US Treasury Department’s sanctions arm, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), on Russia’s National Payment Card System (NSPK), which operates the Mir card system.
Earlier, the NSPK press service reported that it had received notification from the Armenian national payment system that, effective March 30, banks participating in the Armenian Card (ArCa) payment system will stop servicing Mir cards. At the same time, VTB Armenia Bank, a subsidiary of Russia’s VTB Bank, which services the Mir card infrastructure in full, will continue to accept the Russian cards in the South Caucasus country.