7 Jul, 2015 13:20

Russian national payment system and Japan’s JCB to issue co-badged cards

Russian National Payment Card System (NPCS) and Japan’s largest payment system Japan Credit Bureau (JCB) have agreed to cooperate and issue co-badged cards, says a statement from the Russian company. The new card will be called Mir-JCB.

“The partnership with the Japanese payment system will provide Mir-JCB bank cards access to the infrastructure of JCB worldwide, including Asia, where JCB has traditionally been strong and had wide network of card acceptance. Co-badging the Mir-JCB card will work in the infrastructure of the Mir payment system as a Mir bank card; in the JCB infrastructure, outside of Russia, as a JCB card”, said the statement published Tuesday.

JCB in turn will significantly strengthen its position in the Russian market and its worldwide business, added NPCS.

The issue of cards is scheduled for 2016. All the functionality and benefits of the co-badged cards’ programs will be available to holders.

In February, Gazprom’s banking arm Gazprombank became the first Russian bank to start issuing JCB cards. In June, the parties expanded the cooperation, as Gazprombank made JCB cards accessible in all its ATMs throughout Russia.

JCB is one of the largest payment systems in the world. JCB cards are issued in 19 countries with 190 countries accepting the cards. JCB has more than 89 million clients, 20 million of whom live outside of Japan.

In October, 2014 JCB was registered as a payment system by the Bank of Russia.

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