22.05.2019, Caracas.
Venezuela decided to fully stop operations with Visa, Mastercard and Maestro international payment systems in the country by 2020, Banca y Negocios reported on May 21.
According to the decree of the Central Bank and the Republican Banking System Administration (SUDEBAN) of May 16, 2019, Venezuelan banks must develop a domestic transaction processing network based on biometric identification.
The document specifies that banking transactions with Visa, Mastercard and Maestro debit cards should be terminated on November 30, 2019. The same measures should affect credit cards as well after January 30, 2020.
Banks are required to submit a plan for implementing the program of transition to a “sovereign” system within 10 days from receipt of instructions from the Central Bank.
According to Banca y Negocios, the idea to develop and switch to a domestic payment system emerged after the U.S. had announced its plans to ban Visa and Mastercard in Venezuela.
The United States has been imposing economic sanctions against Venezuela for already a number of years. These sanctions exert influence oil industry, first and foremost.
In this connection, in April 2019 Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro announced his decision to have financial flows from oil sales to go through the Russian company Rosneft .
Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency
