A number of Russian bank customers have complained inability to use their bank cards with Google Pay and Apple Pay. According to reports, this is an aftermath of the newly-imposed financial sanctions on the country. The affected financial institutions are listed in a press release from Russia’s Central Bank. They include VTB Group, Sovcombank, Novikombank, Promsvyazbank, and Otkritie FC Bank.
While bank cards from these institutions are still of use within Russia, the customers have noted that they no longer work abroad or online for stores and services belonging to countries that issued sanctions on Russia. This has also been confirmed to include card payments through Apple Pay and Google Pay, although the Central Bank says contactless payments will still be available with the bank cards themselves, given that they support it says The Verge.
Several countries have joined in to issue stiff financial sanctions on Russia in a bit to express dissatisfaction for its invasion of Ukrainian soil. According to Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, the European Union alone has issued stiff financial sanctions on Russia’s banking network That are targeted at limiting the country’s banking network by 70%. The US has placed major financial sanctions on Sberbank and VTB Bank and frozen assets belonging to others. The UK has frozen the assets of five Russian banks, noting that it’s no longer business as usual.
According to The Verge, reports from 2020 reveal that Russia-owned Sberbank Online, followed by YooMoney (formerly Yandex Money) are the 2 most popular online payment platforms in Russia as well QIWI and two other Russian payment service providers. At the time, 29 per cent of Russians reported using Google Pay, while 20 per cent used Apple Pay — however, this doesn’t account for their popularity as forms of contactless mobile payments.
Reports say that the US and Europe now have some Russian banks blocked from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication – SWIFT, the global financial system for communicating transactions, and are also making moves to directly impose even more grievous sanctions on the Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Olagoke Ajibola is a creative writer and content producer with an eye for details and excellence. He has a demonstrated history of telling stories for TV, Film and Online. Aside from being fascinated by the power of imagination, his other interest are travel, sport, reading and meeting people.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
