YEREVAN, August 18. /ARKA/. Russia and Armenia have completed a pilot project on the integration of their national payment systems, Russian Lenta.ru reported citing the National Payment Card System of Russia.

Armenia’s national payment system ArCa accepts now Russian Mir cards, while ArCa cards are accepted in Russia by VTB, Alfa Bank, Center-Invest and Uraltransbank banks.

VTB is the settlement bank of the Mir system for transactions between payment systems of the two countries. Only national currencies are used in the calculations.

According to the Deputy Governor of the Bank of Russia Olga Skorobogatova, Mir cards will be accepted on the territory of Armenia until the end of 2017.

In April, the National Payment Card System of Russia announced the beginning of negotiations on the acceptance of Mir cards in Thailand to simplify the payment process for tourists. In 2016, more than a million Russian citizens visited that country.

Russia created the Mir payment system in 2014, after Visa and MasterCard ceased to service the cards of a number of Russian banks because of US sanctions against Russia. -0-