The National Payment Card System (NSPK), the operator of Mir cards, is considering abandoning the contact interface on new cards. This was stated by Sergey Bobrov, Head of Operational and Technological Support for NSPK projects.
According to Bobrov, Russians are inserting their cards into terminals less and less frequently — in less than 1.5 percent of cases. Almost all transactions — 98.5 percent — are carried out using contactless technology. If the trend continues, the contact payment method may practically disappear by 2031.
We are designing an architecture for the next decade. At the request of the market, we are ready to think about abandoning one element, perhaps an unexpected one — we are talking about the contact interface in new cards
Abandoning the contact interface means that new cards will only work via NFC — a technology that allows you to pay for purchases by simply touching the terminal. A similar transition has previously occurred in many countries: in the UK and South Korea, contact transactions have already become rare.