You're reading: Sberbank offered to buy out Maestro, MasterCard refused

St. Petersburg - Sberbank considered the possibility of buying the Maestro brand from MasterCard, but the latter refused to sell, a source familiar with the negotiations told reporters Thursday, May 22 on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

“There were attempts to reach an agreement to buy out the Maestro brand completely, but MasterCard refused to sell it,” he said.

He said that creating a national payment card system based on the PRO100 system that is being developed by Sberbank does not solve the issue of becoming independent of international payment cards, because it uses MasterCard’s chip.

“The solution that Sberbank has today has a serious shortcoming – it’s licensed. It’s impossible to reach an agreement there, it’ll remain licensed in any case,” he said.

Therefore, the option of creation a national payment card system from scratch remains on the front burner, he said.