Economist Ashot Yeghiazaryan considers the initiative of the possible use of single payment cards in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan hardly feasible. Note that a structure can emerge in the countries of the Eurasian Union in connection with the created of a single payment infrastructure when the national cardholders will not think whether they are able to use the “plastic” card in the neighboring country, in the initial period, at least to withdraw cash from the ATM. “This, in my opinion, is more demonstrative, formal and unfeasible initiative within the EaEU because there are no required grounds and preconditions for it.
This is actually considered and discussed under the financial market and the creation of a single financial banking union but we know that they are very far from reality. All these countries have banking and different from each other huge models, in other words, it is not possible to unify and create this banking union. Eventually, all this is intended to create a single currency, and the issue of creating single securities is also an unfeasible task in the EaEU. If we talk about specific payment cards, there are many unresolved questions, first of all, the entire process cannot last less than two years, secondly, there are many problems why the countries shall prefer such type of cards, they are first and foremost uncompetitive against the national cards that are used in these countries, then there is the matter of tariffs, technical problems, software problems, which simply make this initiative unfeasible.
There are also threats, for example, the security provision, such as there are fraud-designed schemes in the modern world connection with the payment cards, this system will not be secured of this. The uninterrupted operation of the payment card system is questionable although it envisages enormous financial costs of for the parties,” – said the economist to Aravot.am.
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According to him, a while ago, the issue of payments by national currencies was also raised, “There were international payment systems in Armenia and Belarus but not in Russia, and only connected with the events in Ukraine, when international sanctions were imposed to some of the Russian banks, only then Russia initiated to create a national payment card system. Until recently, Kazakhstan did not want to create such system but now it has initiated the task for the creation of such national payment card system.”
Arpine SIMONYAN
