MASTERCARD FROM THE VOLGA (The expert, February 9-15, 2004, №5)

A Nizhny Novgorod manufacturer of plastic cards the company NovaCard was the first Russian company which was certified by both international payment systems MasterCard and Visa. To this day cards was bought mainly abroad by banks. In Russia the only certified manufacturer was a Moscow company Rozan Finance, which after the receipt of certificate in 2002 produced about 3 mln Visa cards for Russian banks.

Created 10 years ago the company NovaCard produces the cards of ISO standard of different purposes: discount, transport, club, telecommunication, ID and access control cards as well as bank of the domestic payment systems Golden Crown and Union Card. As the enterprise estimates itself NovaCard takes 70 % of Russian production of payment cards for mobile communication.

Certification of Visa and MasterCard will allow the company to produce plastic cards of international standard either for Russian or foreign banks. According to Vladimir Krupnov, CEO of NovaCard, in 2004 the company is going to produce 2,5-3 mln Visa cards. According to his estimate the production of plastic cards in Nizhny Novgorod will allow the bank-clients to economize about 10% of costs on customs duties and transportation and to accelerate the order implementation. Besides, NovaCard can produce cards with very low circulation 500-1000 cards.

As the CEO of Russian representative Visa office, Lue Naumovsky reported now there are 10 mln Visa plastic cards in circulation in Russia and in 2004 the company Visa International is going to increase their quantity to 15-16 mln units. 5 mln cards else, which are in circulation now in Russia, belong to MasterCard. Visa and MasterCard take 90 % of the Russian plastic cards market, the rest 10% are the cards of other international institutions and local cards of Russian banks.

In 2004 two Russian manufacturers Goznak (Perm) and Orga (Zelenograd) are going to get the certificates of the international payment systems.