Sanctioned Russian banks’ cardholders will not be able to use Apple Pay and Google Pay
Clients of those Russian banks that have come under international sanctions for aggression against Ukraine will not be able to use Apple Pay and Google Pay services, Russian Central Bank (RCB) reported.
"Apple Pay or Google Pay services will not be available for these bank cards, but they can still be used for standard contact or contactless payment throughout Russia", RCB explained.
These measures concern the cards of the following Russian banks: VTB Group, Sovcombank, Novikombank, Promsvyazbank, and Otkrytiya Bank, all of which have come under sanctions from the United States and other Western countries.
Cardholders of these sanctioned banks will not be able to pay abroad (neither contact nor contactless), nor use these cards to pay for goods in online stores and service aggregators registered in countries that support Western sanctions.
At the same time, the Lithuanian payment system Paysera refused to serve customers from Russia and Belarus.
The company will close all accounts of individuals and legal entities, disable depositing and withdrawal of funds for Russian and Belarusian bank accounts, and will not open new accounts for companies with at least one shareholder who is a citizen of Russia or Belarus.
Recall that US President Joe Biden announced new sanctions against Russia for launching a large-scale invasion of Ukraine.
In particular, these sanctions include export restrictions, including the export of high-tech products to Russia, and measures against [Russian bank] VTB.
"And today, we’re also blocking four more major banks. That means every asset they have in America will be frozen. This includes V.T.B., the second-largest bank in Russia, which has $250 billion in assets." Biden added.
"On Tuesday, we stopped the Russian government from raising money from U.S. or European investors.
Now, we’re going to apply the same restrictions to Russia’s largest state-owned enterprises — companies with assets that exceed $1.4 trillion," Biden said.
