Novosibirsk banks assessed the growth of interest in Mir cards

Explosive growth in registration of Mir cards was noted by all banks surveyed by RBC Novosibirsk. Demand for cards in Novosibirsk grew on the back of Western sanctions, due to which Visa and Mastercard had to stop working with banks that fell under the restrictions.

VTB reported that the number of issued Mir cards in March doubled the figures for the same period last year, with more than a quarter of the issue in March accounted for digital cards.

The bank "Accept" reported that in connection with the termination of the issuance of Visa cards from March 10, the bank redirected the entire flow of customer requests for the issuance of bank cards to the issuance of Mir cards - corporate, credit, instant issue cards.

Svetlana Zakharova, deputy retail manager of the Siberian branch of Otkritie Bank, said that the volume of Mir card issuance in the first two weeks of March alone increased sixfold in Otkritie compared to the same periods of previous months.

At the end of March, Otkritie Bank conducted a study on the types of bank cards used by its customers. it turned out, in particular, that 54% of the surveyed Siberians already have a Mir card. Another 18% already use the Mir card and plan to issue an additional one, another 8% plan to order this card for the first time.

Also in March, the share of transactions with Mir cards increased in March of this year - they are increasingly replacing payments through Visa and Mastercard cards.

Mir cards have been issued in RUSSIA since 2015. The card operator - NSPK - was created in 2014, after sanctions due to the annexation of Crimea to Russia due to the risks of disconnecting cards from international payment systems. Over the next seven years, Mir became mandatory for transferring salaries to state employees, as well as for receiving pensions and benefits. According to the Central Bank, at the end of 2021, 113.6 million Mir cards were issued.

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Mir accounted for 25.7% of all card transactions in Russia and 32.5% of the issuance of new cards, these are data from the Central Bank.

In March, the share of payments with Mir cards increased significantly in all banks. Thus, Tinkoff Business records an increase from 18 to 26%, VTB reports that the share of payments on Mir cards in March reached a maximum of 28.4% of the total turnover of card transactions, having increased by 10 percentage points over the month. According to the Russian Standard acquiring network, the share of Mir cards in March 2022 in terms of payment volume exceeded 30%.