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Mir cards demonstrate upswing in demand
Russian banks are reporting a growing demand for Mir cards that was triggered on February 24, when Russia came under Western sanctions after the start of the military operation in Ukraine. Visa and Mastercard also imposed restrictions on sanctioned banks.
VTB notes that every third purchase of bank customers is made using Mir cards, which already account for a third of the bank’s card transactions volume and over a quarter of total transaction value, while the demand for digital Mir card issue has increased 5 times over the week.
In just a week, the share of transactions with domestic payment cards in the VTB's total retail transaction value increased from 22% to 27%. The number of Mir card transactions today amounts to 34% of the total value compared to 26% a week earlier.
This week, VTB customers opened 15% more Mir cards than last week. Increased demand is in place for digital cards: within a week, VTB Online users got five times more such cards than in the previous week. In total, since the start of the issue, VTB has issued 11.8 million national payment cards for customers.
The twofold increase in the Mir cards issue within the period from February 24 was also reported by the Moscow Credit Bank. The daily issue of Mir cards for retail customers at Gazprombank grew by 3-5 times. Rosbank and Alfa-Bank also reported an increase in customer demand for Mir cards.