Central Bank planning to remove concerns soon with work of Visa, MasterCard in Russia - Nabiullina
MOSCOW. June 30 (Interfax) - Russia's Central Bank is planning to remove all concerns connected with the work of international payment systems in Russia following the approval of a new law that regulates the systems' activity.
"Talks are underway with Visa and MasterCard on the terms of their work in Russia. I hope we will resolve all concerns [and] all problems that were connected with their functioning soon as well," Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina said at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In the spring of this year, after Visa and MasterCard stopped servicing cards issued by a number of Russian banks that fell under U.S. sanctions due to the crisis in Ukraine, the Russian authorities returned to the idea of creating a national payment system. By July 1, the technological platform for the system should be selected, the main contenders for which are Zolotaya Korona (Golden Crown) and PRO100, controlled by Sberbank .
This issue was not directly touched upon at the meeting between Putin and the chief of Central Bank. Putin simply said he was interested in creating a national payment system, while Nabiullina described how this process is organized.
"Legislative amendments were recently approved that envision the creation of a fully fledged national payment system so that our people who use plastic cards and have already become accustomed to this feel protected from any unfriendly actions that could be undertaken from outside. In connection with this, we are carrying out an entire array of actions. The first concern short-term measures - we are working together with banks in order for them to have a connection amongst themselves for there to be so-called interhost technological associations that allow for the system to be made more reliable in the short-term perspective. The second area of our activity concerns us creating our own processing centers in Russia [and] our own operational clearinghouse in order to issue fully valid cards that our banks would issue based on Russian technologies [and] Russian practices in order for all processing and transacting to take place on Russian territory," Nabiullina said.
"We have a plan of action prepared. Now a commission is working that was created by the Central Bank," she said, adding that this commission included government representatives and representatives of parliament. Specialists are currently selecting technologies that already exist, and such technological solutions will be prepared in the near future, Nabiullina noted. "Then in the course of around one and a half years, I think we will be able to create a fully fledged national payment system," she said.