Mastercard Company Has No Activities in Iran

The multinational financial services company Mastercard, based in New York, rejected recent reports about the company's collaboration with Iran to provide credit cards. A spokesperson for Mastercard emphasized to the Azerbaijani news agency Trend that the company has no activities in Iran, citing international sanctions against the Islamic Republic as the reason. He stated that since sanctions against Iran are still in place for companies based in the U.S., Mastercard has no operations in Iran. This position from the financial services company is a rebuttal to reports that emerged in Iran this week. On Saturday, August 14, reports were published in Iran stating that following a contract with a foreign company, access for Iranians to international credit cards had been made possible. However, these reports, which quoted the Minister of Communications in Hassan Rouhani's government, suggested that Iran was set to access Mastercard credit cards through an intermediary company. Mahmoud Vaezi, the Minister of Communications and Information Technology, announced on Saturday that Mastercard services would be operational in Iran and stated that the Iranian Vision Card project, as a representative of Mastercard in Iran, has signed a contract with the postal company to meet the needs of citizens for foreign travel, purchasing foreign articles, and attending international conferences through credit cards. According to Mr. Vaezi, this opportunity arose following the signing of the nuclear agreement known as the JCPOA and the lifting of sanctions. In March, it was also announced that the Central Bank of Iran was negotiating with Visa and Mastercard to facilitate the operations of these two companies in Iran. Previously, Iranian officials had stated that preparations for the use of credit cards from Asian banks were underway until the restrictions imposed on the use of international operators, such as Visa and Mastercard, were lifted. Following the victory of the 1979 revolution in Iran and the subsequent severing of relations with the U.S. and the imposition of certain sanctions against Iran, the use of international credit cards was not possible due to the inability of American companies Visa and Mastercard to support them. The National Bank of Iran briefly installed Visa and Mastercard terminals in the early 1990s, but these devices became practically unusable due to the intensification of sanctions.