Syria's Financial Isolation Ends as Visa and Mastercard Execute First International Card Transactions
Syria’s Financial Isolation Ends as Visa and Mastercard Execute First International Card Transactions #
Visa and Mastercard completed their first international card transactions in Syria on Wednesday, two days after Washington removed the country’s state sponsor of terrorism designation, opening Syria to international card payments after decades of financial isolation.
The near-simultaneous transactions by the two card networks came after the terrorism label, which had been on Syria since 1979, was formally rescinded. Even after the US ended its broader sanctions regime against Syria, the designation had continued to deter banks and financial institutions because of the legal and compliance risks it carried for any institution seeking to do business there.
Qatar’s QNB Group partnered with Mastercard on what the bank described as the world’s first end-to-end international card payment in Syria, using point-of-sale terminals that QNB said would allow eligible Syrian merchants, including hotels, restaurants and government entities, to accept international Mastercard credit cards. The rollout will be phased, subject to regulatory approvals. Visa conducted its first live international transaction in Syria in cooperation with Lebanon-based Fransabank as the acquiring financial institution and Paymera, a Syrian payments technology company owned by the country’s state sovereign fund.
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa used a Visa card to pay for coffee at a restaurant in Damascus’s historic Old City. Syrian state media shared footage of the transaction.
The US State Department formally rescinded Syria’s terrorism listing on Monday following a 45-day congressional review period triggered by President Donald Trump’s July notification to lawmakers. The decision was accompanied by the removal of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the former paramilitary group whose offensive led to the fall of the Assad regime, from the US designated global terrorist list. Washington had already terminated its comprehensive sanctions programme against Syria, and Congress had repealed the Caesar Act, the country’s most severe secondary sanctions regime, in a December 2025 defence spending bill. The terrorism label had persisted as a significant legal deterrent to international capital.
Syria’s central bank said it is actively working to rebuild correspondent banking relationships and expand official channels for cross-border transfers, but gave no timeline for full reintegration. The bank acknowledged that significant work remains in areas including compliance, governance, cybersecurity and regulatory oversight after years of severely limited ties to the global financial system. The US Treasury has confirmed that American financial institutions are now permitted to service Syrian clients and process payments involving Syrian banks.
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