Well-known western credit cards have been used in the Russian market for 30 years, Diners Club and American Express since 1969 Visa International and Eurocard/Mastercard since 1974. The most widely accepted cards are still American Express, Visa, and Europay (Eurocard/Mastercard) although some Russian-issued debit/credit cards, eg. Union Cards, have gained wide acceptance with over 2,000,000 cardholders in Russia..
Upscale Moscovites (and visitors) love to use credit cards as the number of shops and restaurants accepting credit cards grew exponentially from 1992 until mid-1998. Russian banks issued "plastic cards", usually of the "debit card" variety where the purchases are deducted immediately from previous deposits (of rubles or dollars) in their (Russian) banks. ATM's were equally popular for the same reason they are abroad. One does not have to keep large sums of money at home or under the mattress, but could earn interest by keeping it in the bank.
The number of card holders can significantly in-crease due to the fact that many pensioners are nowable to get their pension money through Sberbank cards. A pensioner's plastic card costs about 50 rubles.

Current status After the crises a record number of Russian banks (23) became VISA members. They include such banks as Petrokommerts, MENATEP St. Petersburg, Impexbank and Bank of Austria. At the same time Vneshtorgbank, Garanti bank, GUTA-bank and Sobinbank received the status of Europay principal members. Sberbank of Russia became the largest issuer of plastic cards in Russia.
After the Russian players, who had suffered from the 1998 crisis, left the market, the subsiduaries of foreign banks, in particular, Bank Austria and Raiffei-senbank became active on it. With such a support behind them, they looked attractive for new Russians wishing to acqure reliable cards. In order not to lose well-to-do- clients, a number of domestic banks decided to issue an exclusive and truly credit product - VISA Platinum. Avtobank, Alfa-bank, Impexbank and Bank Moskvy were the first to imbark on this road.
Howerver, few Russians can afford expensive cards. The other operaors prefer debit products and salary payment projects. Thus, Electron cards account for 88 per cent of Russian VISA cards.
Not only Russian but also international payment systems place their emphasis on mass clients in order to expand business. Diners Club which has issued only 4,000 cards in Russia has decided to make a joint product - DinersClub-STB Card.
In order to modernise the system of settlements in Russia VISA and Europay, took a number of extraordinary steps. Visa has opened its representative office in Russia and VISA International founded a new servicing company designed to service card payments at trade outlets (acquiring) while Europay proposed to Russian banks to sign a letter of intent to createa non-inclusive united acquiring company to offer the services of the payment systems to traders.