Payments
Russia turns to China for bank card microchips
April 5, 2022
In the wake of economic sanctions due to the invasion of Ukraine, Russia is turning to Chinese microchip factories for bank cards. Russia aims to circumnavigate sanctions by linking these cards to the Mir payment system, according to a report by Yahoo Finance.
Due to sanctions, Russia is cut off from $640 billion in gold and foreign exchange reserves, and much of its banks have no access to the SWIFT global banking message system. On top of this, Visa and MasterCard have cut off services to the country.
Russia is also facing a microchip shortage due to shortages from Asian factories and cutoffs from European suppliers.
"We are looking for new microchip suppliers and [have] found a couple in China, with certification process ongoing," Oleg Tishakov, board member with the National Card Payment System(NSPK) in Russia, said during a conference.
The NSPK has already issued more than 2 million Mir cards between the end of 2021 and March 2022. Apple Pay cut its connection with Mir last month, according to the report.
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