ZAO Sberkarta’s stockholders decided at the general meeting that the company should go into liquidation, the joint stock company’s website states.

Sberbank of Russia announced it was going to give up on Sberkarta as early as the beginning of the year. The bank’s management then said the technology involved in the manufacturing of the card did not meet the modern standards.

ZAO Sberkarta was set up in October 2005 by Sberbank of Russia, the National Reserve Bank, Interregional Investment Bank (MIB), RG Leasing, and Austria-based BGS Smartcard Systems A.G. Sberkarta was expected to coordinate the performance of United Russian Payment System and provide technological and legal interaction among all the members of the system. However, Sberkarta was apparently unable to compete with the more experienced market players and failed to present Russia with a national payment system.

There are about twenty different payment systems on the Russian market now, the most popular ones being Visa and MasterCard; the market share of these two systems currently comes to 85%.