Belarus to replace ‘bank plastic cards’ by ‘payment cards’

        The term ‘bank plastic cards’ will be replaced by ‘payment cards’ as envisaged in the law on amendments and addenda to the Banking Code that came into effect on 22 January 2013.
        The law clarifies the regulations on cashless payments taking into consideration international and domestic experience, expansion of the application of electronic documents, unification of payment instruction forms, adjustments to regulations governing factoring, banking guarantees and deposits.
        “Taking into consideration that payment cards are viewed by the global banking community as payment instruments giving access to a customer’s account (current, credit or savings account), the provisions regulating legal relationship on the card account agreement have been removed from the Banking Code. The move is related to the definition of the term ‘payment card’,” the National Bank explained. 
        The approach to regulating transactions involving payment cards will allow unifying banking operations, optimizing the number of accounts opened by customers and reducing the number of separate agreements signed by banks with each of their customers, providing customers with a variety of services on distant account management within the framework of one agreement.