Accepting Russian payment cards Mir in Uzbekistan will be provided until the end of 2019, press release of the National Payment Card System (NPCS, operator of the payment system “Mir”) reports.

This is provided for by an agreement that Mir and UzCard signed within the framework of the International financial-economic Forum of the CIS Member States, which is taking place in Tashkent on March 27-30.

The contract envisages organization of the acceptance of Mir cards in the infrastructure of banks participating in the UzCard payment system by the end of 2019.

It is planned that continuation of the interaction of the two payment systems will also be ensuring the acceptance of UzCard cards in the infrastructure of Russian banks participating in the Mir payment system.

In addition, the cooperation of payment systems of the two countries will give UzCard an opportunity to use technologies of the Mir system, including issuing their cards with the Mir payment application, the report says.

The Russian national payment card system (“Mir” card operator) was created in 2014 to service bank payments in Russia after Visa and Mastercard stopped accepting cards from banks that fell under Western sanctions.

These cards are intended primarily for use within Russia – in other countries they are not accepted, with the exception of co-branded products with Mastercard or Japanese JCB.

Most of the users of the Mir cards are state budgetary employees who were transferred to these cards. According to the BBC, part of the state budgetary employees, having received a salary on the Mir card, often transfer it to Visa and MasterCard.