Speaking at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) on Thursday, Jose Ortega Sanchez, the head of Venezuela’s central bank, Calixto, noted that Venezuelan banks have begun to accept Mir cards, the Russian alternative to Visa and Mastercard.

The Latin American nation announced it was interested in joining with the Mir payment system last year, and since then has been in talks over the step. Previously the Russia embassy in Venezuela had said that a switch to Mir by Caracus would, “create stable conditions for settlements in national currencies” between the two countries.

Since last year, the Russian Mir payment system has been seeing a steady increase in demand for new cards, according to the operator of the system. Roughly ten countries use the system, while roughly 15 others have indicated they would like to join it.

On Wednesday, at SPIEF, the head of Myanmar’s central bank noted that by December, his nation would begin using Mir cards. In addition, Iran has also recently entered into an agreement to use the Mir system..

Cuba began using the system in March. Several Havana banks have installed Mir-compatible ATMs, offering the ability to withdraw case from them in Cuban pesos.

The US targeted Russia with sanctions in 2014 which cut it off from Western financial systems. In response, Russia developed the Mir system as a national payment system to replace Visa and Mastercard. Following the US levying additional sanctions on Moscow last year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including blocking many Russian banks for accessing the SWIFT instant financial messaging system, the Russian government more heavily promoted its domestic version of SWIFT, SPFS, as a reliable alternative to ensure that banks can transfer funds both inside and outside the country.

The result has been the development of an increasingly sophisticated parallel financial system which is rapidly being adopted by nations outside of the axis of Western powers.