The Russian President charged VTB Bank Governor and Chairman of the Managing Board Andrey Kostin to study JCB, the Japanese card payment system. The thing is that Vladimir Putin insists on creating the Russian payment system based on the experience of the foreign counterparts. Besides, the president has already marked China UnionPay out as an exemplar.
The chief of VTB reported on the successful merge of its system with the United Payment System. As the result, almost third of the Russian banks are able now to settle their payments inside the country. United Payment System is likely to become a prototype of the national payment system in Russia. An important point to remember is that the corresponding law was signed by Vladimir Putin in the midst of the geopolitical crisis in Ukraine. At this time, some international payment processors like Visa and MasterCard started to block the cards issued by the Russian banks included in the “black list” of financial institutions the West imposed sanctions on.
The Russian government realizes that cards’ holders might become a subject for further political pressure from the West and do its best to develop the secure Russian analogue. Late April, the president of the Russian Federation signed off the amendments to the law On the National Payment System, which place Visa and MasterCard under an obligation to either locate their processing centers in Russia or make security payment in the amount of two-day turnover to the Bank of Russia. The deposit as a whole can reach $2.9 billion. Assuming the new regulations, the Visa management board threatened to down tools in Russia completely. That make Mr Putin soften and change his mind. Since now, the payments’ amount will be set by the government by the agreement with the Russian central bank.
