To respond to the decision of the giants Visa and Mastercard to suspend their operations with Russia after the military intervention in Ukraine, Russian banks announced on Sunday that they were working on issuing bank cards from the Chinese UnionPay network.
Russian Visa and Mastercard bank cards will no longer be valid abroad, and cards issued abroad will no longer work in Russia, the two companies announced on Saturday. So that Russians can have payment cards abroad, Russian banks have announced that they are working to launch UnionPay cards, the Russian Mir system only being functional in a handful of countries in the world.
Russian banking system hit by economic sanctions
“Sberbank is working on the possibility of issuing co-branded Mir-UnionPay cards. We will inform you later about the issuance schedule,” explained the number 1 of the Russian banking sector. “We are already working on issuing UnionPay cards, China’s national payment system. With this card, you can make payments in 180 countries around the world,” Alfa Bank also said on its Telegram account. According to Russian news agencies, Rosbank, Tinkoff-Bank, Raiffeisen and MKB have all indicated that they are also working on this file.
Russia, especially its financial and banking sector, is targeted by sanctions on a scale never seen since it brought tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine with the aim of overthrowing the government there.