Due to the ongoing invasion of Ukraine by Russia, there are now five banks in Russia that have been sanctioned by the U.S.
As a result of the sanctions, Apple Pay customers at five select banks are unable to use Apple Pay on their enabled devices at this time. Those banks are VTB Group banks, Sovcombank, Novikombank, Promsvyazbank and Otkritie.
According to Bank of Russia, “Clients of the sanctioned banks will be unable to pay by cards of these banks outside Russia and use them to pay for services in online shops and service aggregators registered in the countries supporting the sanctions.”
Customers will be able to use the physical cards themselves in Russia, but when making purchases outside of Russia or using Apple Pay services, they will not be functional to do so.
At this time, the U.S., E.U., U.K., Australia and Japan have all announced they will be implementing sanctions against Russia that do include “freezing of assets held by Russian financial institutions,” according to CryptoNews.com.
Apple has not made a comment or statement about these sanctions and how they will impact its Apple Pay services in Russia.
