Banks in Russia must decide whether to keep processing payments on outdated cards after Visa and Mastercard chip certificates expired on Jan. 1, 2025, the CEO of Russia’s payment system said.
The restriction on the operation of cards with expired validity periods is necessary due to security risks, since as of Jan. 1, 2025, the security certificates of international payment systems have expired in absolutely all chips.
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With no renewals in place, banks must now decide whether to continue processing payments for cards with expired chip certificates and reconfigure their ATMs and point-of-sale terminals accordingly.
“If we are talking about the cards of international payment systems, since Jan. 1 of this year, the security certificates in all chips have already expired. This is a matter of payment security. Therefore, such a discussion is now underway,” Dmitry Dubynin, CEO of Russia’s National Payment Card System (NSPK), told RBC in an interview.
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Bank cards are equipped with so-called issuer certificates or chip security certificates. They may not coincide with the validity period of the cards themselves and can be purchased by banks for different terms: three years, five years, and so on.
At the end of 2024, the validity period of the certificates expired for the first time since Visa and Mastercard left Russia. Previously, the payment systems extended these certificates so that the cards would continue to work. But now the decision to service cards with expired certificates in their POS terminals and ATMs was made by the banks themselves, which carried out additional configurations of their terminals and ATMs for this purpose.
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NSPK said it is coordinating with banks and the Bank of Russia to determine deadlines for phasing out expired cards. The regulator has already announced plans to limit the validity of cards beyond their official expiration dates, citing fraud-prevention concerns.
NSPK is forming a general market statement to present it to the Bank of Russia.
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The central bank said that fewer than 1% of all payment terminals will be unable to process Visa and Mastercard transactions after the certificates expire.