OpenWay Group is the top-ranked global developer and vendor of the Way4 digital payments software platform.
OpenWay Group's presence on the Russian market has an impressive record. Following annexation of the Crimea by the Russian Federation in 2014, when Visa and Mastercard stopped providing services to Russian banks in the region, OpenWay Group was engaged to develop Mir, an alternative payment system, to fill the opened gap. To circumvent international sanctions, OpenWay Group reportedly set up a number of shell companies through which it communicated with its sanctioned clients. Now, following the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation of Ukraine, ensuing wave of international sanctions and exit of Visa and Mastercard from the Russian market, Mir has become the Russian nation-wide payment system.
Since April 2022 OpenWay Group claims to have left the Russian market and ceased maintaining their clients. Yet, they cannot legally or technically prevent their former customers from using once purchased software because their “standard software license agreements are perpetual and do not require periodic license renewal, unlike the agreements of some of [their] competitors”. This is believed to be just a smoke screen as OpenWay Group retains its presence on the Russian market and keeps maintaining the Russian national payment system. Included in the list of international war sponsors by NACP.