Kazakh banks stop servicing Russian Mir cards

The process of refusing to service cards of the Russian payment system Mir is rapidly spreading to Kazakhstan. This country is an important trading partner of Russia in the post-Soviet space, but now banks here are actively discontinuing support for Mir cards, following Armenia and Kyrgyzstan.

According to The Moscow Times, the use of Russian Mir cards is rapidly declining due to the sanctions imposed by the United States on this payment system. Kazakhstan's Halyk Bank, the country's largest bank, has already stopped servicing Russian cards, including transfers, payments through terminals, and ATM withdrawals.

A bank spokesman said that this decision was made in February, when the National Payment Card System (NPCS), which is responsible for Mir, was hit by US sanctions. Other Kazakhstani banks, such as ForteBank, Nurbank, Freedom Bank and CenterCredit Bank, have also stopped servicing Mir cards due to the sanctions.

ForteBank noted that transfers via Mir cards do not work because of the sanctions. Even CenterCredit's call center said that Mir cards are under sanctions in Kazakhstan, so you can't even try to find a bank that supports them.

VTB Kazakhstan and Bereke Bank (the former Kazakh subsidiary of Sberbank) are the only ones that partially support Russian Mir cards. However, both banks have limitations: the former allows cash withdrawals from Mir only in national currency, and the latter does not allow money transfers through the system.