Russia Mulls Payment System With Belarus and Kazakhstan

ST. PETERSBURG--The Bank of Russia is working with its counterparts in Belarus and Kazakhstan on creating a regional payment system within the countries" customs union, the central bank's first deputy chairman said Wednesday.

Moscow plans to create a national payment system to protect itself against the kind of disruption caused when Visa and MasterCard cut ties with Russian banks hit by U.S. sanctions after Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in March.

Speaking on the sidelines of a banking conference, Georgy Luntovsky said the central bank is now discussing the creation of the payment system within the Kremlin-run customs union of former Soviet states.

Russia plans to launch its own payment system in the second half of 2015, but hasn't yet made a final decision on what will serve as a basis for the system. It is also unclear how Visa and MasterCard will cooperate with Russia's national payment system.

Mr. Luntovsky's statement fits the pattern outlined by the International Monetary Fund in a report Tuesday. The IMF warned that Western sanctions on Russia are likely to push Moscow toward increased self-reliance. The fund said the well-being of the Russian economy lies in a greater global integration that began with Moscow's 2012 accession to the World Trade Organization, but the crisis in Ukraine is now endangering that course.

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