By Alexander Kolyandr
MOSCOW-- Visa Inc. will transfer the processing of transactions
made on its cards in Russia to a local payment system, Russia's
central bank and the company said Thursday.
The international credit and debit card company follows
MasterCard Inc., its peer, who signed a similar agreement at the
end of December. The Bank of Russia will act as a settlement
office.
The move comes almost a year after President Vladimir Putin
backed plans for Russia to create its own national payment system
to protect itself against the kind of disruption caused when Visa
and MasterCard cut ties with Russian banks hit by U.S. sanctions
over the annexation of Crimea.
The disruption caused Russia's lower house of parliament to pass
a law that required all payment transactions in the Russian
Federation to be processed within the country.
"Since the passing of the amendments to the Russian National
Payment System law, Visa has been working with the Central Bank of
Russia to find a mutually agreeable solution for domestic
processing in Russia. ..We are grateful to our colleagues for all
their efforts and we appreciate their professionalism and
cooperation." said Andrew Torre Visa's country manager for
Russia.
A Russian finance minister official told The Wall Street Journal
last May that the government wanted to create a payment system akin
to the existing systems in France and Turkey. In those two
countries, global card providers work together with their local
peers, processing transactions together.
Write to Alexander Kolyandr at Alexander.Kolyandr@wsj.com
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