FX.co ★ First success of Russia’s national payment system

Russia is gradually implementing the blueprint of the domestic payment system. So, OAO Universal Electronic Card, the developer of the Russian own payment system, released a communique reading that 800,000 cards with the PRO 100 logo had been issued by early July. 330,000 of these cards were allocated to citizens of Crimea. Besides, speaking for the media, developers of the Russian payment system specified that since early summer, Russia has issued not only plastic cards with the PRO 100 logo alternative to foreign Visa and MasterCard, but also payment application software for universal electronic cards. The company management pushed the project implementation under the pressure of the “external circumstances”. Indeed, creating the viable national payment system is an urgent matter amid the escalating geopolitical tensions and the pending threat of further economic sanctions. New universal plastic cards are more advanced than the conventional payment tool as they contain such personal data as an individual account number of the mandatory pension insurance, a number of a medical insurance policy, and data of an electronic bank application. The communique says the national payment system can boast about the rapidly growing network as nowadays PRO 100 cards are accepted by over 88,000 ATMs and used by over 359,000 trading companies throughout Russia. Moreover, the Rossiya bank has already entered into agreement with the PRO 100 payment system. Besides, the Bank of Moscow has reached an accord with OAO Universal Electronic Card on creating host-to-host link which is supposed to provide service of plastic cards of banks involved in the PRO 100 payment system infrastructure. Meanwhile, the new national payment system has engaged such major Russian Banks as OAO Sberbank, OAO Uralsib, OAO AK BARS, the Bank of Moscow, and OAO Moskovskiy Industrial Bank.