Visa international payment system sent a letter to Russian participating banks with the requirement to ensure money transfers between bank cards by phone number by 30 September 2021.

Today this service is optional, for willing banks, and is not very popular so far. Visa aims to establish a strict requirement in order to be able to confidently compete with the rapidly growing Faster Payments System (FPS) of the Central Bank of Russia.

According to experts’ estimations, Visa accounts for about 45% of the Russian card payments market.

Thus, Visa actually starts to directly compete with the Faster Payment System, which provides transfers between people by phone number to almost any bank, Kommersant reports.

“Visa regularly and timely informs its clients about all technical requirements needed for the banks to implement the correct operation of payment solutions within the Visa payment system. In this case, we are talking about the requirements for the banks participating in the Visa payment system to support the already existing transfer service by phone number,” the company's press service explained.

Kommersant writes that until 2022, Visa will have to fight with FPS for transfers to a phone number worth more than 100 thousand rubles a month. Such transfers within the framework of the FPS are now free, but after 2022, users will have to pay for them.

Faster Payment System was launched in early 2019. Sberbank was the main competitor of FPS. The Russian Central Bank could not agree with FPS on its joining the system for a long time. The problem was solved only in spring 2020.

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