On March 2 the Ministry sent a letter to Visa International Company, demanding to submit the terms and conditions of contracts the company signs with banks both in English and in Russian languages.
"The MAP is also planning to forward similar letters to Master Card, American Express and Union Club payment systems" - Kashevarov said.
This way the Ministry wants to assess whether the contracts' requirements correspond to the Anti-Monopoly legislation. The MAP also wants to check what share of the market is controlled by each payment system.
According to Kashevarov, the Ministry's preliminary estimate has shown that the share of Visa International and Master Card companies exceeds 10%.
"We think that these companies occupy a dominant position on payment systems market, and, therefore, a number of contract requirements can be interpreted as unfair competition" - Kashevarov pointed out.