'the world' or 'peace') is a Russian card payment system for electronic fund transfers established by the Central Bank of Russia under a law adopted on 1 May 2017.

[6][7][8] On the basis of the initial groundwork, Mir as a system was formalized in 2014 as a way to overcome potential blocks of electronic payments, after several Russian banks were denied services by US-based Visa and MasterCard because of the sanctions regime against them.

[15] In March 2021, the payment system announced a ban on the replenishment of foreign electronic wallets, as it considered such operations as high-risk.

[20] Their ceasing of operations in Russia represented a US$1.5 billion annual revenue loss to the two financial services giants.

[23] It is estimated that banks' demand for card chips is six times higher than the production capacity of their only domestic manufacturer Mikron Group.

[24] In September 2022, the US Treasury Department threatened foreign banks with secondary sanctions for servicing Mir cards.

Among them were Turkish DenizBank and İşbank, Vietnamese BIDV, Kazakh Halyk Bank, Tajik Dushanbe City.

[27] The most serious problem for Russian citizens was the restrictions on servicing the Mir card in Turkey, one of their most popular tourist destinations.

Mir has processed most domestic card payments in Russia since 2015, while the main role of foreign operators such as Visa and Mastercard was to run international transactions.

As Ola Oyetayo, the chief executive of payments platform Verto, said "Russian banks that have found themselves scrabbling may not give the US networks another chance: In the long term, they may say once bitten, twice shy – they may not switch back even if they become an option again".

[31] On February 23, 2024, the United States Department of the Treasury imposed sanctions against the Mir card operator – NSPK.

The law basically meant that pensioners, civil servants, public sector employees, and persons receiving welfare payments had to be paid using SPFS/Mir.

In March 2022, Iran was considering recognizing Mir to allow it to continue trading with Russia as due to sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine, Russian banks were banned from the SWIFT system used globally.

[63] On 26 July 2022, ATMs in Cuba began to accept Mir cards, Juan Carlos Escalona, adviser to the embassy of the republic on tourism, told the Association of Tour Operators of Russia (ATOR).

[69] A top official said that Iran would soon start accepting payments made with Mir cards, according to Russia's RIA news agency on 27 July 2022.

[72] Thailand is interested in accepting Mir card payments due to the visa-free stay for Russians in the country being extended to 90 days.