ST. PETERSBURG, July 1 /ITAR-TASS/. Visa and MasterCard international payment systems will be relieved of the need to place security deposits with the country’s central bank, if they find Russian partners by October 31, Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina said on Tuesday.

The Central Bank also plans to define the format of a national payment system by mid-July and already prepared a short list of its potential managers, Nabiullina said. “We have decided to prolong the work by mid-July,” she said, referring to a working group, which is to choose whether Sberbank’s Universal Electronic Card (UEC) or Golden Crown will become a platform for the national payment system.

“The international payment operators have been granted a postponement in placing security deposits and by this term (October 31) the companies have been offered to transfer their operations for servicing intra-Russian transactions to any nationally significant payment system. If they do this by October 31, their security deposits will be minimized to zero,” Nabiullina said.

Russia has recently amended its legislation on the national payment system, which now requires Visa and MasterCard to place collateral deposits into special accounts with Russia's Central Bank.

The legislation was passed after Visa and MasterCard said they would block card operations by Rossiya and SMP banks blacklisted by the US administration as institutions with key shareholders close to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The sanctions were intended to influence Putin’s policy on Ukraine.