The head of Alpha spoke about the calls of Visa and Mastercard on the night of their departure

The HEAD of Alfa-Bank Vladimir Verkhoshinsky told how top managers of Visa and Mastercard called him with apologies because of their departure from RUSSIA. Without the NSPK, everyone in Russia would wake up “in a different social environment,” the banker believes

Representatives of the leadership of the Russian offices of the international payment systems Visa and Mastercard called the head of Alfa-Bank Vladimir Verkhoshinsky with warnings about leaving Russia. Verkhoshinsky himself spoke about this at the Financial Congress of the Bank of Russia.

“One night, when it all started, the heads of Visa and Mastercard called me at the same time: “Sorry, we are leaving Russia, we are leaving tomorrow,” Verkhoshinsky said. He added that if the Bank of Russia had not created the National Payment Card System (NSPK, Mir card operator) and the Financial Message Transfer System (SPFS, an alternative to SWIFT), then “we would wake up the next morning, to put it mildly, in a different social environment."

The international payment systems Visa and Mastercard left Russia in March 2022 amid the start of a special military operation in Ukraine and the introduction of large-scale sanctions against the Russian financial sector. Their cards, issued by Russian banks, stopped working abroad, but continued to function within the country. This became possible because all operations on them are processed by NSPK. The system was created in 2014 to serve bank payments in Russia, after Visa and Mastercard stopped accepting cards from banks that fell under Western sanctions due to the annexation of Crimea.

SPFS was also created in 2014 amid fears that Russian banks would be disconnected from the international SWIFT financial messaging network. Now large Russian banks are disconnected from SWIFT, which makes it difficult to conduct foreign currency money transfers.

In general, according to Verkhoshinsky, if no geopolitical and macroeconomic global cataclysms happen in 2023, then “it will be a good year.” “The economy will continue to feel good, and it will be supported, among other things, by five banks and the Central Bank. A great five and a goalkeeper, ”Verkhoshinsky believes. He explained that now there are five banks left in the country, which set the competition and redistribute the market among themselves. He did not specify their names, but recalled that last year he named seven banks as such. “The regulator here should not worry about competition. [...] When five players are an oligopoly, this is the toughest competition, a bloodbath,” concluded Verkhoshinsky.