The agreement was set in place on 30 January 2015. Bank of Russia did not specify the five banks although it had been reported that Gazprombank, Rosbank, Alfa Bank, Bank Rossiya, SMP Bank, and Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development would be the contenders to pioneer the program.
The law which established NPCS took effect in 2014, after a number of Russian banks became subject to EU and US sanctions. As such, the banks’ client cards were temporary blocked by Visa and MasterCard.
The process of NPCS deployment is divided into three stages. The first stage establishes the operations and payment clearing centers for international payment systems transactions, building-up banks interaction infrastructure and adjusting the operating system. By the end of March, 2015, NPCS platform should be able to process all the transactions provided by Visa and MasterCard.
In the second stage (H2 2015), the Russian system is supposed to issue proprietary payment cards, so that Russian citizens may use them to make payments nationwide. The third stage, planned after 2016, implies the expansion of Russian payment cards usage in foreign markets and their integration in other payment systems infrastructure.
Every day we send out a free e-mail with the most important headlines of the last 24 hours.
Subscribe now