Russia to link Iran to global payment systems

EghtesadOnline: Iran says a cooperation agreement has been signed with a Russian provider of banking technological solutions to connect the country’s financial network with global payment systems.

News ID: ۷۷۹۸۱۱

16 October 2017

The agreement was signed between Iran’s Informatics Services Corporation (ISC) and Russia’s BPC Group of Companies.

Based on it, according to PressTV, the two companies would cooperate in creating a standard banking card switch platform so as to provide a link between Iranian clients and international providers of financial services.

ISC Managing Director Seyyed Aboutaleb Najafi told Iran’s IRNA news agency that the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) had delegated the mission to create a link to global payment systems to his company.  The mission, he said, was in line with a CBI roadmap.

Najafi said a tender had been accordingly announced and nine bidders were picked out of which Russia’s BCP eventually won the contract.

Two other final bidders were France’s Worldline and Russia’s Openway, added the official.

“BPC has already carried out similar projects in several other countries,” said Najafi. “It has even already signed contracts with several Iranian banks to launch the switch platform needed to connect them to global payment services providers.”

Iran’s CBI announced in May that the Islamic Republic and Russia had agreed to integrate their bank card systems – a move that officials said would enable Iranian and Russian citizens to use their cards in each other's countries.

"Iranian citizens who have a Shetab [Iran's national payment system] card and those who have Russian [Mir] cards will be able to use ATMs in both countries,” the bank announced in a statement.