Mir cards issuance at a high in Tatarstan in March

A five-fold increase, then a fall

There is a demand for Mir cards in Tatarstan, and its share is gradually growing. This was told to Realnoe Vremya in the press service of Sberbank.

“There is a demand for Mir cards in Tatarstan, and its share is gradually growing. However, there is no clear transition to cards from foreign payment systems yet, since all valid Visa and Mastercard cards continue to operate on the territory of the Russian Federation without changes," they noted.

For example, in March of this year, 133,827 Mir cards were issued in Tatarstan. For comparison: in January and February, residents of the republic opened 24,653 and 30,426 cards of this payment system, respectively.

At the same time, in April and May, the demand for them gradually decreased to 98,989 and 69,694, respectively.

In total, since March, Tatarstan residents have been issued 302,510 Mir cards, since the beginning of the year — 357,589.

According to the Volga-Vyatka Bank of Sberbank PJSC (includes Vladimir, Kirov, Nizhny Novgorod regions, Perm Krai, Mari El, Mordovia, Tatarstan, Udmurtia, Chuvashia), in March, the bank's customers issued 583,002 Mir cards, in April — 442,334 cards, and in May — 320,047.

Since the beginning of the year, 1,625,310 cards of the Russian payment system have been issued in these regions, and 1,345,383 — since March.

As told to Realnoe Vremya in the press service of Ak Bars Bank, the Mir cards have been issued to about 370 thousand customers across Russia since March of this year. In general, Ak Bars Bank has issued about 400 thousand Mir cards since the beginning of this year.

Mir Pay instead of Apple Pay

The American companies Visa and Mastercard, which provide payment transaction services around the world, announced the suspension of work in Russia due to the situation in Ukraine.

Visa cards issued in Russia stopped working outside the country, and those issued by foreign financial institutions stopped working in the Russian Federation. Mastercard announced the termination of support for cards issued in Russia. The “plastic” issued abroad has stopped working in retail outlets and ATMs in Russia. The Central Bank further explained that Visa and Mastercard cards can be used in Russia until the end of the term.

After that, the head of the National Payment Card System (NSPK) Vladimir Komlev reported that as of the beginning of March 2022, about 116 million Mir cards were issued in Russia.

Last week, the media learned that in October, banks issuing such cards will be able to perform payment and refund operations using QR codes. By the first half of 2023, this technology is planned to be made publicly available. Now the Mir Pay application is available to customers of more than 80 Russian banks. According to the head of the National Payment Card System (NSPK) Vladimir Komlev, it is in demand.

This is largely due to that after the start of Russia's special operation in Ukraine, Apple Pay and Google Pay services became unavailable to Russians. In March, Google suspended a pilot project to launch Google Pay service for Mir cards.