‘The co-branding project turned out to be unprofitable because, as a lot of experts (for instance, the representatives of international payment systems) had warned, the target audience for this service was based in the regions,’ the analyst from BrokerCreditService Denis Mukhin said to UrBC representative relating to the decision of the Baltic Bank to stop servicing the co-branding Gold Crown MasterCard cards.

‘The international payment systems have tended to decrease their tariffs recently, so, in terms of the future, the share of the Russian payment systems will be gradually going down, and co-branding products as such are not likely to make any difference. This is why they will probably be replaced by the international services some time in the future,’ Mr Mukhin believes.