National Payment System “APRA” and Russian Payment System “Mir” Completed Integration of Mutual Acceptance of National Payment Cards.
Within the framework of the intersystem cooperation project between the national payment systems of Abkhazia and Russia, the integration process aimed at the mutual servicing of the national bank cards of Abkhazia “APRA” and Russia “Mir” has been completed.
The integration of payment systems was preceded by a series of events, as a result of which the main areas of intersystem cooperation were identified, and a roadmap for the project was developed. In 2018, work on the organization of interaction between APRA and Mir moved in the active phase. Based on the previously agreed principles of interaction and the developed roadmap, the technical interaction of the national payment systems “APRA” - “Mir” was implemented.
Since June 2019 “APRA”s infrastructure has become fully accessible to Mir cardholders. To date, operations in the amount of about 300 million rubles have been performed in the terminal network of the “APRA” APC using the “Mir” cards.
The next stage of intersystem interaction was the organization of “APRA” card service in the “Mir” card acceptance infrastructure. As part of this phase, work was carried out aimed at preparing the personalization center of the “APRA” NPS to issue new payment cards ready for servicing outside the Republic of Abkhazia. As a result of the implementation of the second stage of integration, for APRA's partner-banks became available a new emission product - the APRA bank card “World”, which should become a popular means of payment for the population of Abkhazia with a wide geography of application.
Holders of new APRA World cards will have the opportunity to carry out cash withdrawal operations at ATMs and cash desks of banks, as well as operations to pay for goods and services at POS terminals installed at retail outlets in the Russian Federation and several other countries.
During October 2019, the banks of Abkhazia will begin to issue new APRA World cards.