Russian MIR card appears in Cuba, Moscow "turns its back" on SWIFT

Thẻ MIR của Nga xuất hiện tại Cuba, Moscow 'từ mặt' SWIFT

The card uses Russia's MIR payment system, which was launched in 2015. (Source: Zuma Press)

Thus, people can withdraw Cuban Pesos directly from their Russian Ruble accounts.

According to Sputnik news agency, Russia is continuing to promote the acceptance of the international MIR card in friendly countries.

Earlier, Russian Ambassador to Cuba Andrei Guskov emphasized that the implementation of independent payment mechanisms will help protect Russia-Cuba cooperation from the impact of unilateral US-imposed embargoes.

Ambassador Guskov affirmed that the implementation of the MIR payment system in Cuba also helps to establish links bypassing financial institutions of unfriendly countries and contributes to strengthening Russian-Cuban cooperation.

According to the Russian diplomat , the above measures will have a positive impact on increasing the number of tourists from the Eurasian country to the Caribbean island, which welcomed more than 54,000 Russian tourists in 2022 and 146,000 in 2021.

According to RT , the Central Bank of Russia has announced a ban on Russian financial institutions using the SWIFT payment system for domestic transactions.

Accordingly, from October 2023, Russian banks will be obliged to use only domestic services to carry out financial transactions.

SWIFT will only be used for international payments.

“This will ensure the reliability, continuity and security of data exchange when conducting transactions within Russia,” the Central Bank of Russia said in a statement.

Thus, domestic transactions will need to be processed through the service systems of third-party Russian companies or through the Central Bank's SPFS payment system.

Moscow rolled out its own national card system, MIR, shortly after the US first targeted the country with sanctions in 2014.

At the same time, the country has also implemented an internal National Payment Card System (NSPK) to smoothly take over all Visa and Mastercard transactions.

Russia also has its own financial messaging system, SPFS, which secures transactions between banks both domestically and internationally. SPFS acts as an alternative to SWIFT, which has blocked many sanctioned Russian banks.