BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan, July 9. Kyrgyzstan will develop its own software for servicing Russian MIR payment cards, Minister of Economy and Commerce of Kyrgyzstan Daniyar Amangeldiev told Russian media, TurkicWorld reports.
According to him, the software used to service MIR payment cards in Kyrgyzstan is also currently used by the country's 'Elkart' national payment system.
"At the request of our European partners, who own this software, we had to abandon the service of MIR cards due to the fact that this undermined our internal payment system," the minister explained.
Amangeldiev noted that at the moment Kyrgyzstan is actively developing its software for servicing Russian cards.
"Today this issue is on the agenda, we are looking for new ways, new software. At the moment, our Interbank Processing Center is developing its own software product. I think that as soon as we finish this process, of course, the work will be resumed," he said.
Meanwhile, the US Ministry of Finance has slapped sanctions on Russia's national payment card system. The Russian National Payment Card System is in charge of the Russian national payment system, MIR.
MIR is a Russian card payment system for electronic financial transfers established by the Central Bank of Russia by a law enacted on May 1, 2017. The system was created by Belgian digital payments startup OpenWay and is run by the Russian National Card Payment System, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Central Bank of Russia.