The article deals with the establishment of the Russian National Payment Card System (NPCS), which is demands special care. The purpose of this article is studying implementation stages of the first independent payment system in Russia. The key indicators of the NPCS contemporary development have been thoroughly investigated. It is concluded that to ensure the fair competition in the market of payment cards it is vital to pay attention on improving the payment infrastructure and implementation the economic insentives for the «Mir» payment system participants. The authors consider that in the long-term period the Russian NPCS would be able to compete with international payment systems in case it got ready to implement innovations and offer price and functional advantages of the pruposed products. It is expected that the results revealed can be used by economists-researchers, credit institutes and national regulating authorities for improvement of the NSPC development in the conditions of economic sanctions and also for stimulation of cashless payments growth in the country.