Uzbekistan’s inter-bank processing center UZCARD has reportedly paused its processing of payments via the Bank of Russia’s National Card Payment System (NSPK)-issued Mir payment cards.
UZCARD said the pause was caused by technical issues and was not in response to U.S. sanctions imposed last week on NSPK CEO Vladimir Komlev, Reuters reported Friday (Sept. 23).
“The technical maintenance procedures are being carried out by our Uzbek partner bank which carries out payments, and it asked us to halt temporarily the payment processes due to their maintenance works,” UZCARD Head of Public Relations Sobirjon Mahmudov said in the report.
PYMNTS has reached out to both UZCARD and NSPK for comment.
The U.S. and other countries began imposing sweeping sanctions on Russia’s banks in February, shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
At the same time, the Bank of Russia began instituting measures to help the banking sectors and the Russian ruble, such as easing some banking regulations and telling the banks to think about holding off on issuing dividends and bonuses to managers.
Read more: Bank of Russia: Sanctions May Hinder Card Use
The NSPK, which oversees card transactions in Russia, dates back to 2014, when Russia was sanctioned for its earlier invasion of Crimea.
NSPK launched its card network, Mir, in 2015. As of March, Mir cards were only accepted in a handful of countries outside of Russia, with most of them being former Soviet states.
Read more: Russia’s Payments System Gets Around Mastercard, Visa Departure
The ramped-up scrutiny of Russian banks and trade with firms outside Russian borders has put a finer point on the need to make sure that financial institutions and their reliant parties know who’s on the other side of a transaction, nsKnox COO Nithai Barzam told PYMNTS’ Karen Webster in May.
Read more: Automatic Verification of Bank Account Owners Is Key to Sanctions Compliance
“When you are onboarding a counterparty, you want to make sure that in addition to all the other things, you are looking into whether or not they are appearing on sanctions lists,” Barzam said.
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