“Then we are coming to you” , – we can say that this is how Russian banks reacted to the ban on accepting Mir cards abroad. According to RBC, at least two Russian banks are considering installing their POS-terminals in countries that are friendly and popular with tourists specifically for accepting Mir cards. We are talking about Turkey and the UAE.
According to the publication, citing two sources in the banking market, one of the banks plans to install POS-terminals only in Turkey, the second – in Turkey and the UAE. Tourist demand — which has “persisted and grown” in these countries — has become one of the main motives, the sources say. It is also planned to install payment terminals in the main tourist places: hotels, large stores, etc.
The sources also said that the acceptance of cards in POS-terminals of Russian banks is possible according to two schemes. In the case of the first, the acquiring bank enters into an agreement with an intermediary, which may be a payment provider, an entrepreneur, etc. The intermediary enters into a contract with a store or hotel and puts the bank's POS terminal in it. Then, when making payments, the buyers' money is credited to the intermediary's account, which is opened with the acquiring bank. The intermediary converts the received rubles into the desired currency and transfers them to the seller's settlement account. For such services, the intermediary may charge a commission from the seller. In the second, the store or hotel draws up a power of attorney for the intermediary. The intermediary contacts the Russian acquiring bank, opens a ruble account for the company and concludes an acquiring agreement with the bank on its behalf, then picks up the POS-terminals and installs them.
“Scheme with the installation of POS-terminals abroad quite unique in terms of bank card services, but it can be compared with the infrastructure created by Chinese payment solution providers, such as Alipay, which are actively developing a payment network in places popular with Chinese tourists, ”commented the head of the group for working with financial institutions of the company. DRT Maxim Nalyutin. At the same time, the sanctions are circumvented in fact with the help of an intermediary organization that acts as an independent economic entity on the territory of another state, although in the interests of Russian acquiring banks, as was supposed to be done when deciding what to do with the sanctions against Mir .
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