PRESS: Russian banks to carry budget-dependent payments via Mir cards

MOSCOW, Sep 20 (PRIME) -- Russia’s central bank plans to oblige local banks to carry out all budget-dependent payments, including salaries to public service employees and pensions, through Mir cards of the National Payment Card System (NPCS) from January 1, 2018, Vedomosti business daily reported Tuesday.

Sources familiar with discussions of amendments to the law on the national payment system told the business daily that banks will have to issue Mir cards to all receivers of such payments by the deadline if the amendments are approved.

The current law also obliges banks to carry out these payments through Mir cards, but no deadline for a complete switch to these cards was set. According to data of the NPCS, only 25 banks of 142 participants of the Mir payment system started issuing the cards.

The central bank also plans to oblige receivers of budget-dependent payments to use only Mir cards for any transactions of funds received from the budget from January 1, 2018. The regulator also previously obliged all retailers whose income exceeds 120 million rubles per year to accept Mir cards, but plans to cut the income threshold in the law to over 10 million rubles per quarter.

(64.9173 rubles – U.S. $1)

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