The National Bank of Kyrgyzstan explained the refusal to service Mir cards with fear of sanctions

Those Kyrgyz banks that stopped servicing Russian Mir payment cards did so because of fear of falling under sanctions. This was stated by the deputy head of the National Bank of Kyrgyzstan Kaiyp Kulenbekov, noting that the National Bank did not exert pressure on this issue.

The banking system of Kyrgyzstan has been working with Mir cards since 2019. By the beginning of November, half of the Kyrgyz banks suspended the service of Mir cards. In total, there are 23 commercial banks in the country.

“Kyrgyz banks that stopped servicing Mir cards took such measures out of fear of falling under sanctions from US financial structures,” Mr. Kulenbekov said at a meeting of the Kyrgyz parliament (quoted from “Interfax”).

The work of Kyrgyz banks may suffer due to cooperation with the Mir system, as sanctions may affect the maintenance of their correspondent accounts abroad, the deputy head of the National Bank explained.

Banks Tolubay, Eurasian Savings, Kyrgyzkommertsbank, Kapital, Keremet, RSK and EcoIslamicBank continue to accept Mir cards in Kyrgyzstan.

In September, the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) warned of consequences for non-US banks doing business with the Mir card operator. Such banks may become participants in sanctions circumvention, OFAC said.

From working with the Russian payment system “Mir” due to the risk of secondary sanctions began to refuse in Turkey and the CIS.

Read about the consequences in the publication “Kommersant” “System of Infinitely Limited Payments”.

Maria Fedotova