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This content was produced in Russia where the law

restricts

coverage of Russian military operations in Ukraine

MOSCOW, April 2 (Reuters) - Russia's Mir payment cards

will stop working in Kyrgyzstan from this week, the country's

local payments operator said on Tuesday, citing the risk of

secondary sanctions on its own payments infrastructure.

Mir payment cards, Moscow's alternative to Visa and

Mastercard ( MA ), have become more important since those U.S.

companies suspended operations in Russia over the conflict in

Ukraine and their cards issued in Russia stopped working abroad.

Kyrgyzstan's move mirrors one made by Armenia, which stopped

servicing Mir cards from March 30, and highlights the problem

Russia faces in facilitating payments for its citizens abroad,

even in countries that have not imposed sanctions against

Moscow.

Russia has been courting these "friendly" countries, but

only a handful of nations actually accept Mir cards and banks in

some countries have backtracked on facilitating Mir

transactions.

"In order to minimise the risk of secondary sanctions, the

Interbank Processing Centre (IPC), as guarantor of the smooth

operation of the Elkart national payment system, informs about

the halting of servicing Mir bank cards in its infrastructure

from April 5, 2024, due to the termination of a mutual

relationship with the NSPK," the IPC said in a statement.

Russia's National Card Payment System (NSPK) said it had

received warning from Elkart that Mir would stop working on

April 3 in Kyrgyzstan.

The Bank of Russia's First Deputy Governor Olga

Skorobogatova said the central bank was working on solving the

problem with foreign banks' refusal to accept Mir cards with the

help of Russian banks' foreign subsidiaries and the central

bank's Faster Payments System (FPS), a financial messaging

service.