By John Meyer, consultant in financial affairs – Eurasia Business News, July 13, 2026. Article no 3028

For the first time since 2023, the international payment system UnionPay accepts a Russian credit institution as a member. The Russian Center-invest Bank has opened a pre-order for cards of this payment system. Market participants consider this event to be significant, as it may indicate a change in UnionPay’s policy towards the Russian market. At the same time, experts believe that this is an image project for the Russian bank, because it will be difficult to recoup it.

Center-invest Bank plans to start issuing cards of the UnionPay international payment system at the end of July. As the bank’s technical support told the daily Kommersant, pre-orders for cards of the international payment system opened on July 13.

On the bank’s website in the “Debit Cards” section, this offer could not be found, but the pre-order page opens using the link sent from technical support. “You get access to the global payment infrastructure, while maintaining the usual level of service and control from Center-invest Bank,” the bank’s website says. The card can be obtained at the bank’s offices, which are located in the Rostov and Volgograd regions, Krasnodar and Stavropol territories, in Volgograd, Nizhny Novgorod, Maikop and Moscow.

In 2022, Chinese UnionPay cards were issued by more than ten Russian banks. However, as they were included in the sanctions lists, the number of issuers decreased. After the inclusion of Gazprombank and Primsotsbank in the U.S. OFAC SDN List, only two banks that issue UnionPay cards remained in the Russian market – Russian Agricultural Bank (RSHB) and Asian-Pacific Bank (ATB).

Multiple Russian banks have joined the Chinese UnionPay card network following the exit of Visa and Mastercard from Russia.

In the same time, ATB cards are accepted throughout the acceptance network, which covers more than 180 countries, RSHB cards are accepted in 150 countries (they have not been working in the EU since July 20, 2025).

Read also : The Private Investor Deal Evaluation Handbook

This is very significant news, since after March 2022 the Chinese UnionPay did not accept new Russian members, due to Western sanctions on Russian banks. The fact that Center-invest will begin to issue its cards means that the payment system has begun to change its policy towards the Russian market.

According to the Russian Agricultural Bank, a total of more than 2 million UnionPay cards were issued. In 2025, the spending of Russians abroad on them exceeded 67 billion rubles In just four months of 2026, the volume of card transactions in China reached 8.2 billion rubles, 2.5 times higher than last year’s result. Thailand (6.4 billion rubles), Vietnam (1.4 billion rubles), and Turkey (1.3 billion rubles) remain popular destinations.

Read also : The Million-Dollar Retirement Blueprint for U.S. citizens in 2026

At the same time, banking experts note that from the point of view of assessing economic efficiency, it is unlikely that medium-sized banks will be able to ensure the payback of the UnionPay card issuance project within an acceptable period of time, taking into account the limited existing customer base.

Advertisements

Our community already has nearly 250,000 readers!

Subscribe to our Telegram channel

Follow us on Telegram, Facebook and Twitter

© Copyright 2026 – Eurasia Business News. Article no. 3028