Despite political differences and continuing threats to disconnect Russia from popular payment systems, some good news appears on this front. Visa agreed to join Russia’s national payment system. According to Visa representatives, the company will transfer the processing of transactions made on its cards in Russia to a local payment system.
The Bank of Russia confirmed this information. “On 18 February 2015, JSC NPCS and VISA Payment System LLC concluded a bilateral agreement on operating and clearing services on domestic VISA payment system card transactions to be provided by the NPCS processing center,” the regulator said.
The move comes after the similar agreement between the NPCS and MasterCard concluded in January. The Bank of Russia will act as a settlement office.
Russia embarked on the national payment system after Visa and MasterCard stopped providing services for clients of SMP Bank, InvestCapitalBank, Bank Rossiya, and Sobinbank last summer. Their decision followed the international sanctions imposed on Russia. In response, Russia passed the Russian National Payment System law that required all payment transactions in the Russian Federation to be processed within the country. Moreover, the payment systems will have to pay security fees to the central bank in the near future. In case of further disruptions, these funds will be used to cover potential costs. However, the payment systems having the status of nationally important ones will be exempted from paying the fees.
