MasterCard and Visa could not explain why their cards pass through Crimea
In Crimea, they have learned to bypass the ban imposed by the international payment systems Visa and MasterCard on servicing their cards in Crimea.
About it write “Izvestia”, recalling that after December 2014, clients of Crimean banks could not use “plastic” outside the peninsula, and cardholders of Russian banks could not withdraw money in Crimea.
As a result, Russia launched the national payment card system (NSCP) in a short time.
“In order to work in Russia, international systems had to process payments within our country, whereas previously information about transactions was processed in processing centers outside the Russian Federation,” explained the head of NSPK Vladimir Komlev. This allowed residents of Crimea to freely use Visa and MasterCard cards issued by Russian banks,” the publication notes.
It is noteworthy that MasterCard and Visa, answering the publication’s question whether the actual practice of using their cards in Crimea does not contradict the previously announced policy of blocking transactions on the peninsula, stated that due to sanctions they do not conduct any activities in Crimea.
“It was difficult for the press centers of international payment systems to explain why, in this case, their cards are accepted there. At the same time, already in the summer of 2016 in Crimea and Sevastopol, almost the entire payment infrastructure was ready to accept NSPK Mir cards. Over 2,5 years, the number of interbank transactions using these cards on the peninsula increased from several hundred thousand to almost 14,9 million in Crimea and another 6,8 million in Sevastopol,” the newspaper writes, citing NSPK.
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