MOSCOW, July 16. /TASS/. Visa and Mastercard payment cards are effectively absent from the Russian market, although they still require technical support, CEO of the National Payment Card System (NSPK), the operator of the Mir payment system, Dmitry Dubynin said in an interview with Expert magazine.

"I would even say that Visa and Mastercard cards are effectively absent from the Russian market. Their cards no longer provide any value: they do not work abroad, there is no access to the loyalty programs of these payment systems, and so on. Essentially, they are just pieces of plastic bearing the logos of international payment systems that no longer operate in Russia. However, they still require our technological support," Dubynin said.

He added that such cards are subject to physical wear and tear, their chips’ security certificates eventually expire, and all of this requires the NSPK to implement additional technical solutions to ensure they continue to function properly.

Earlier, Bank of Russia Governor Elvira Nabiullina said that the central bank has not set a deadline for withdrawing Visa and Mastercard cards from circulation and that they will be phased out gradually.

In early March 2022, the international payment systems Visa and Mastercard announced the suspension of their operations in Russia. Cards issued by Russian banks continued to function domestically as usual because they are processed by the NSPK, the operator of the Mir payment system. At the same time, the NSPK recommended that banks continue accepting cards whose expiration dates had passed.