Bank of Russia Urges Visa, Mastercard to Exit Market

Alla Bakina, director of the Bank of Russia’s National Payment System Department, urged Visa and Mastercard to leave Russia on May 26, 2026, saying their share of the country’s payments market has fallen below 17% and that the national system continues to bear costs to support impaired cards.

Bakina told state outlets that the international schemes no longer provide the full functionality they once did and that banks are gradually replacing those cards with domestic alternatives, including the Mir system.

The central bank official noted that cashless payments remain widely used: for 2025, cashless payments accounted for 88% of retail turnover, according to the central bank’s figures. The Mir payment system, created in 2014, had issued 476.5 million cards as of January 2026, and banks are increasingly routing customers to Mir as the presence of international schemes contracts.

Ilya Grashchenkov of the Center for Regional Policy Development predicted a ‘‘calm phased transition — without loss of funds, without payment disruptions, and without the need to urgently rush to the bank.’’ He and other analysts expect the substitution to proceed through routine card renewals and processing updates rather than abrupt account changes.

Sergey Vasilkovsky of the Stolypin Institute for Growth Economics said replacing remaining international cards with Mir cards would improve the safety of Russia’s payment infrastructure, noting some legacy Visa and Mastercard products still in use are operating beyond their intended expiration dates.

Visa and Mastercard suspended most Russian operations in 2022 after international sanctions were imposed. Central bank officials say the companies’ practical presence in Russia has since declined, while costs of maintaining legacy instruments remain on the national payment system even as their transactional use falls below 17%.

The Bank of Russia stopped short of issuing an immediate ban. Officials and analysts emphasized that the expected shift will be gradual, carried out through bank updates and card reissues, with authorities focused on preserving payment continuity and consumer protections during the transition.