Russian Payment Card To Materialize Mid-Month

Russia’s National System Of Payment Cards (NSPC) will materialize and start accepting payments in mid-December, according to a report Monday (Dec. 8) in a prominent Russian business newspaper, the Vedomosti.

Sputniknews reported that eight Russian banks, all of which sanctioned by the U.S., United Nations or Western allies, will be the first to test the new electronic funds transfer service. Alfa-Bank, the Ural Bank of Reconstruction and Development, Gazprombank, and Rosbank will implement the system, along with four others, the story said.

The Director General of NSPC, Vladimir Komlev, was quoted saying that those specific banks were “chosen due to their location, their volume of money transfers, and the technology platform they operate on.” That’s important, he said, because “there are logistical differences between operating the system within Moscow and doing so in other Russian regions.”

“The NSPC will become fully operational in the first quarter of 2015. It will first handle operations with bank cards which make use of the international payment systems,” the Sputniknews story said. “From 2015, all Visa and Mastercard transactions will be processed via the NSPC. The system is slated to issue its own cards starting from December of next year.”