Turkish state banks Ziraat Bank, Vakifbank and Halkbank stopped cooperation with the Russian payment system "Mir". Earlier, the private banks İş Bankasi and DenizBank refused this cooperation.
Now Russians will not be able to withdraw money from these cards or pay with them virtually within the borders of Turkey, according to Bloomberg.
This means that Russians can only pay in cash within the country.
The Turkish authorities began to look for an alternative that would allow Russians to continue paying for goods and services.
It became known in mid-September that the U.S. aimed to ban the use of the "Mir" card in Turkey. At the time, sources told the Financial Times (FT) that Washington would send a "clear signal" to financial institutions.
At the same time, sources told the FT that the West intends to fight sanctions evasion not only in Turkey, but also in the countries of the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Persian Gulf.
Currently, "Mir" cards are served in Vietnam, Armenia, Uzbekistan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
- On September 15, the United States imposed sanctions against Volodymyr Komlev, the general director of the National Payment Card System of Russia, which manages the “Mir” payment card system.
- At the beginning of March 2022, the Visa and MasterCard payment systems stopped working in the Russian Federation — Russian cards of these payment systems work only inside the country. These companies will not issue new cards in Russia.