According to the Russian official media, after MasterCard and VISA announced the discontinuation of their operations in Russia, major banks in Russia have announced that they will switch to UnionPay in China! Russian banks said that they will replace all credit cards and debit cards with UnionPay from MasterCard or VISA in the near future, so that Russians can continue to use credit cards to pay for their bills on weekdays.
It is known that the banks that have announced the switch to UnionPay include: Sberbank of the Russian Federation, Alfa Bank, Tinkoff Bank, Pochta Bank of Russia, Gazprombank, Bank of Industrial Communications of Russia and other banks.
China UnionPay is a financial services organisation initiated by China and is the largest bank card clearing organisation in the world in terms of transaction volume. Currently, in addition to China, UnionPay is also supported in 160 countries, including the Republic of China (Taiwan), Japan, Malaysia, and Singapore.
The withdrawal of MasterCard and VISA from Russia has left a financial services hole in the large Russian market. If all of Russia switches to UnionPay, then Russia will become the second UnionPay-dominated country outside of China!
