Media: Banks Of Armenia Stop Accepting Cards Of Russian Payment System

There will be an exception though.

From March 30 in Armenia, ATMs and POS terminals of most banks in the country will stop accepting cards of the Russian payment system Mir, writes the Russian RBC with a reference to a representative of VTB Armenia. An exception will be the infrastructure of VTB Armenia Bank, which is a subsidiary of the Russian VTB.

A source in the Russian payment market also told Russian media that Armenian banks will soon stop accepting the Mir card.

“Starting March 30, users will no longer be able to make cashless payments at POS terminals and withdraw cash from ATMs of other banks in the republic. This will not affect the operation of VTB (Armenia) cards in any way. Holders of Mir cards from VTB Group banks and any other Russian banks still have access to key services: cash withdrawals from VTB ATMs (Armenia), payment for services in online banking, online purchases (if the service supports Mir cards),” said a representative of VTB Armenia.

According to Russian media, there are 53 VTB branches in Armenia, 22 of which are located in Yerevan. Also, more than 190 ATMs are available to customers of this bank.

On the eve of the second anniversary of the Russian Federation's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the United States introduced export restrictions against 93 companies (63 of them from Russia). The list of restrictions also included the operator of the Mir payment system.

Last year, as part of another package of sanctions, Canada introduced restrictions against the Russian Mir system. Then the Tinkoff bank, the Yandex Pay service and the pro-Kremlin resource Readovka were also sanctioned.