FX.co ★ Japanese payment system eyes Russian market

JCB, Japanese payment system, resumed moves to enter the Russian market in the near future. JCB has reached an accord with Russia’s Alfa-Bank which is supposed to carry out functions as a settlement bank and processing center. JCB expects to obtain a license from Russia’s Central Bank in the short run, daily Kommersant reported.
Vilaine Timiriazev, Chief of Alfa Bank’s processing center, spoke in the interview, “If everything goes as planned, the potential target audience for JCB cards will be mainly those clients, who often fly to China, Japan, and South Korea, where Visa and MasterCard are not well represented.”
On May 5, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin endorsed a package of amendments to the law on the national payment system. It requires Visa and MasterCard either to build their own processing centers in Russia or to place security deposits in the central bank equal to the cash turnover for two days which amounts to $2.9 billion. As a result, Visa responded that they might withdraw their operation from Russia.
On May 23, Visa and MasterCard unveiled their plan to establish in Russia their own payment system provider in half a year. Citing Russia’s Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, those international payment systems called on Russia’s government to facilitate their negotiations with Russian payment systems. Both companies are keen to go on operating in Russia despite their discontent with the new payment system law, security deposits in particular.
Interestingly, Japan Credit Bureau (JCB) was founded in 1961. Currently, JCB cards are issued in 20 countries and accepted in 190 countries. 59 million people in total use this payment system worldwide.