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Russia moves to phase out Visa and Mastercard

Source: NSPK

Russia’s National Payment Card System (NSPK), which processes all transactions in the country, plans to phase out Visa and Mastercard by cutting the interchange fees their cards earn to zero.

Interchange fees are the payments a card-issuing bank receives from the merchant’s bank each time a card is used. NSPK plans to reduce that rate to 1% starting in 2027 and eliminate it entirely starting in 2028 — a move that would make it unprofitable for Russian banks to keep issuing Visa and Mastercard cards.

After Visa and Mastercard left Russia, NSPK chose not to change the interchange rate for their cards, saying at the time that the decision would allow Russian banks to “preserve existing lending and loyalty programs for cardholders.”

After foreign payment systems left Russia following the start of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, Russian banks extended the validity periods of their Visa and Mastercard cards or made them indefinite.

In autumn 2025, NSPK head Dmitry Dubynin said that Visa and Mastercard cards with expired validity periods should be restricted. He explained that the security certificates in the chips of such cards had stopped working as of January 1, 2025.

Russia’s central bank assured at the time that Visa and Mastercard cards issued by Russian banks would continue to work and that there would be no “abrupt steps” to disable the cards.

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