UnionPay Will Be Accepted at More Than 80% of POS Terminals in Russia Within This Year

UnionPay International announced today that it has deepened its cooperation with VTB24, Russia’s second largest bank, to enable 120,000 POS terminals to accept UnionPay within this year, with most of the terminals supporting mobile QuickPass. Previously, the Bank has enabled all of its ATMs to accept UnionPay. Now, the top four banks in Russia have all accepted UnionPay cards. By the end of this year, UnionPay will be available at more than 80% of the local merchants and ATMs.

The merchants of VTB24 are widely located across Moscow, St. Petersburg, Siberia and many other areas, including various types such as railway, aviation, supermarket, F&B and tourist attractions. Among its merchants are Russia’s largest supermarket chain Magnit, high-end restaurant Ginza Project and Coffeemania, to name but a few. The present cooperation will not only provide tourists with convenient payment service, but also promote more local residents to sign up for and use UnionPay cards.

In Russia, the largest market along “One Belt and Road”, UnionPay cards can be used online and offline. More than 500,000 POS terminals and 90,000 ATMs accept UnionPay cards, and some merchant also support mobile QuickPass, enabling UnionPay cardholders to pay with their mobile phones. The official websites of Aeroflot and Siberia Airlines accept UnionPay Online Payment too.

Meanwhile, more and more Russian customers are using UnionPay cards. Over 900,000 UnionPay cards have been issued by 9 banks in Russia, and these cards are frequently used in about 60 countries and regions. The card issuing cooperation between UnionPay International and National System of Payment Cards (NSPK) reached a substantial progress last month: the first UnionPay-MIR debit card was issued by Rosselkhozbank, expanding the availability of MIR cards from Russia to more than 160 countries and regions through the UnionPay network, which substantially enhanced the convenience of Russian residents’ cross-border card use.