Cards of the Russian payment system Mir are already accepted on the Venezuelan island of Margarita, Russian Ambassador to Caracas Sergey Melik-Bagdasarov told journalists.
“On the island of Margarita, which is preparing to receive and is receiving Russian tourists, they are going to start – and, have already started – to accept payments [with the Mir card],” the ambassador said.
He pointed out that in Caracas, the use of these cards is still in test mode but that these are technical issues.
MIR is a payment system devised in 2014 by Russia, when the country first faced a wave of sanctions in connection with incorporating the Crimean peninsula, whose inhabitants expressed their will in a corresponding referendum.
After U.S. companies Visa and MasterCard restricted operations with some Russian banks at the time, President Vladimir Putin commissioned the development of the National Payment Card System, which became the MIR.