{"id":1643750,"date":"2022-09-16T17:56:11","date_gmt":"2022-09-16T21:56:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1643750"},"modified":"2022-09-16T17:56:30","modified_gmt":"2022-09-16T21:56:30","slug":"russia-vows-to-continue-mir-bankcard-expansion-after-new-u-s-sanctions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/russia-vows-to-continue-mir-bankcard-expansion-after-new-u-s-sanctions\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia vows to continue Mir bankcard expansion after new U.S. sanctions"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Frussia-vows-to-continue-mir-bankcard-expansion-after-new-u-s-sanctions%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1643750&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>LONDON (Reuters) -Russia\u2019s central bank on Friday pledged to keep expanding the number of countries that accept its Mir bank cards after new U.S. sanctions targeting people and entities accused of helping Moscow skirt financial sanctions.<\/p>\n<p>The United States on Thursday sanctioned the chief executive of the Bank of Russia\u2019s National Card Payment System (NSPK), which runs Mir, saying it was seeking to hold the Russian government accountable for its Feb. 24 invasion and continuing war against Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRussia has scrambled to find new ways to process payments and conduct transactions,\u201d the U.S. Treasury said. \u201cDirectly and indirectly, Russia\u2019s financial technocrats have supported the Kremlin\u2019s unprovoked war\u201d against Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>The importance of Mir cards for Russians rose substantially this year after U.S. payments firms Visa Inc and Mastercard Inc suspended operations in Russia and their cards that were issued in Russia stopped working abroad.<\/p>\n<p>Cuba, South Korea, Turkey, Vietnam and a handful of former Soviet republics accept Mir, which means both \u201cpeace\u201d and \u201cworld\u201d in Russian, with others such as Iran intending to follow suit soon.<\/p>\n<p>NSPK and Mir themselves are not themselves sanctioned, and U.S. analysts said the U.S. move aimed to keep them from being used to evade U.S. sanctions rather than to prevent Russian tourists from paying for their hotel bills abroad.     <\/p>\n<p>The central bank said Mir cards and other NSPK services would continue working as usual in Russia. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cForeign partners themselves take decisions about opening their infrastructure to accept Mir cards,\u201d the central bank said. \u201cAt the same time, we intend to continue dialogue about expanding the geography of Mir card acceptance.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>The U.S. Treasury said it had blacklisted 22 individuals, including four financial executives whose actions could support Russia\u2019s war effort by helping it evade financial sanctions imposed on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>The four included Vladimir Komlev, the head of NSPK.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRussia created its own state-run card payment system in 2014 out of fear of U.S. and European sanctions,\u201d the Treasury said. \u201cIn his role, Komlev has promoted the Mir network in other countries, which ultimately could assist Russia in circumventing international sanctions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Treasury said \u201cnon-U.S. financial institutions that enter into new or expanded agreements with NSPK risk supporting Russia\u2019s efforts to evade U.S. sanctions through the expanded use of the MIR National Payment System outside the territory of the Russian Federation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Analysts said this implied that existing, limited agreements with NSPK \u2013 such as those allowing Russian tourists to pay their hotel bills abroad \u2013 were not likely to violate U.S. sanctions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey must have some indication, whether diplomatic or intelligence, that Russia is seeking to connect its domestic payments system internationally for the purpose of sanctions evasion,\u201d said Brian O\u2019Toole, a former Treasury official who is a fellow at the Washington-based Atlantic Council think tank.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t think the administration particularly cares all that much about Russian tourists visiting Turkey and paying their hotel bills,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>NSPK did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n<p>Moscow says what it calls a \u201cspecial military operation\u201d in Ukraine was necessary to prevent its neighbour being used as a platform for Western aggression, and to defend Russian-speakers. Kyiv and its Western allies dismiss these arguments as baseless pretexts for an imperial-style war of aggression.<\/p>\n<p> (Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Cynthia Osterman)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.oann.com\/russia-vows-to-continue\/file-photo-a-russian-state-flag-flies-over-the-central\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/tagreuters.com2022binary_LYNXMPEI8F0O4-BASEIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2022binary_LYNXMPEI8F0O4-BASEIMAGE\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>LONDON (Reuters) -Russia\u2019s central bank on Friday pledged to keep expanding the number of countries that accept its Mir bank cards after new U.S. sanctions targeting people and entities accused<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1643750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1643750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1643750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1643750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1643750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1643750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1643750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}