Turkey proposes using its national payment system in place of Mir cards - media

MOSCOW. Oct 5 (Interfax) - Turkey has proposed using its Troy national payment system in place of Mir cards, the Aydinlik newspaper reported, citing sources.

According to the paper, the central banks of Russia and Turkey are discussing the issue.

Representatives of the Turkish tourism industry earlier proposed launching a system of prepaid cards for Russian tourists that would work during their time in the country. Russians could pay for such cards in rubles in Russia along with their tour packages and then use them to pay for goods and services, Turkish newspaper Sabah said.

Mir cards could be used to make payments and withdraw money from the ATMs of five Turkish banks prior to September 2022, when Russian tourists vacationing in Turkey began to have difficulties using the cards. Private banks IsBank and DenizBank were later the first to announce that they would no longer be working with the Russian payment system, and three public banks, Ziraat Bankasi, VakifBank, and Halkbank, joined them on September 27, meaning that there are no longer any banks in Turkey that accept Russian Mir cards.

Troy is Turkey's national payment system, which has been operating since 2016. More than 12 million Troy cards were in circulation as of March 2022.