MIR cards subject to sanctions were used to pay for goods worth 2.1 million KGS in shops

In Kyrgyzstan, people continue to actively use bank cards for cashless payments. In the first three months of 2025, 48 million 371 thousand transactions were made using them. At the same time, 75.2% of all transactions were for the payment of goods and services at retail and service outlets.

The undisputed leader is the international payment system Visa, which was used more than 35.9 million times in stores. It is followed by the national system Elkart with 12 million transactions. UnionPay and AMEX cards showed insignificant activity — only about 1,200 transactions each.

Against this backdrop, data on cards from the Russian payment system MIR, with which Elkart officially suspended cooperation back in April 2024, attracts attention. Despite this, 200 transactions for the payment of goods and services totalling 2.1 million KGS were recorded. In addition, another 10.6 million KGS (1,300 transactions) were withdrawn in cash using these cards.

It should be noted that after the introduction of US sanctions against the MIR operator in February 2024, the National Payment System of Kyrgyzstan announced the termination of technical support for transactions with these cards, followed by commercial banks.

In addition, in the first quarter of 2025, the total amount of non-cash purchases paid for with bank cards amounted to 94.2 billion KGS, and the volume of cash withdrawals reached 177.6 billion KGS.