The head of the Mir operator reported difficulties with accepting some cards in Turkey

Mir cards of sub-sanctioned banks may not work in all ATMs and POS-terminals in Turkey, where this payment system is accepted.A number of Turkish banks make a distinction between the cards of sanctioned and non-sanctioned Russian banks

Turkish acquiring banks may not accept cards from the Russian Mir payment system if the bank that issued it is under Western sanctions. Vladimir Komlev, HEAD of the National Payment Card System (Mir card operator), spoke about this in an interview with RBC TV.

“In some countries - first of all, we can talk about Turkey here - we know cases when in ATMs and POS-terminals of specific banks, they (local banks. - made a distinction between cards of sanctioned and non-sanctioned Russian banks, but this is not mass history,” he said.

At the same time, the SWIFT financial messaging system, from which the EU has disconnected a number of Russian banks, does not in any way affect the ability of banks to work with Mir cards, including abroad. “Practically in any country where Mir cards are accepted today, you can pay with cards of any Russian bank,” Komlev emphasized.

Russian sanctioned banks will not be able to issue UnionPay cards Finance

In May, the largest Turkish air carrier, Turkish Airlines, turned off the acceptance of Mir cards on its website. Then the NSPK explained that acquiring banks that accept Mir cards in foreign countries can independently decide to suspend servicing cards of some Russian banks that are under blocking sanctions.

Now Mir cards work in ten countries: Turkey, Vietnam, Armenia, Uzbekistan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Sberbank, VTB, Alfa-Bank, Promsvyazbank, Otkritie, Sovcombank, Novikombank and Rossiya Bank are under the most stringent US blocking sanctions (they include the risk of secondary sanctions for companies working with those on the sanctions list).

In March, the international payment systems Visa and Mastercard left RUSSIA. Their cards continue to operate in Russia, but have stopped working abroad. Therefore, now Russians have two options for paying contactlessly abroad: using Mir cards and using cards from the Chinese UnionPay payment system. The latter works in 180 countries of the world, however, the work of UnionPay cards of Russian banks also depends on sanctions, and they may not be accepted at all foreign ATMs and POS terminals, RBC wrote earlier.

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NSPK explained how Visa and Mastercard cards will work in Russia Business

According to Komlev, Russian banks may continue to issue new Visa and Mastercard cards on old plastic blanks. “Some banks can still simply in order to somehow optimize the existing stocks of plastic, they can even issue new Visa, Mastercard cards on this plastic,” says Komlev. They will work just as well inside Russia as the old Visa and Mastercard cards, but loyalty programs and marketing promotions from payment systems will not be available to their holders, Komlev added.