Apple Discontinued Support For Russian Bank Apps In Store

Apple discontinued support for the Russian bank apps in its app store in light of the US sanctions against the Russian banks so ApplePay will no longer support the users of cards issued by the institutions as we can see more in today’s latest cryptocurrency news.

ApplePay is Apple’s digital wallet service which will no longer provide support for Russian banks following sanctions from all of the west. Applications from Promsvyabank for example have been removed from the App store already. As Apple discontinued support for the Russian apps, the removal was reported by the Russian news outlet RBC saying that three of Promsvyabank’s applications vanished from the Apple store like PBS investments, PBS business, and mobile banking. In the meantime, the Google Play store deleted the banking app as well.

Russia announced special military operations in Ukraine and started attacking the nation’s military infrastructure. Plenty of the Western nations condemned the move as an invasion and breach of international law like the United States, Australia, and Canada. President Joe Biden announced the American Sanctions on four of Russia’s biggest banks in order to limit Russia’s ability to do busienss in EUR, dollar, Pounds, and yen in order to be cut from the global economy.

Though the apps have been removed from the Apple onlien store, their functionality will continue for customers that have already downloaded them. PBS said that It was trying o get the PSB Busienss app re-installed on the apple store but those without the application had to use the PBS Internet Bank on their website. With the new sanctions, however, the bank’s access to the US financial system is cut off:

“All their assets in US jurisdiction are frozen, and US citizens and entities are prohibited from doing business with them without special permission from the office of foreign assets control.”

Russia’s central bank confirmed that Apple Pay and Google Pay will no longer be compatible for the users of debit and credit cards issued by the banks. Crypto on the other hand has been used to funnel more than $4 million in funds to the Ukraine military to help with the war against Russia. In the meantime, some of the biggest EU mining pools stopped servicing Russian customers and showed solidarity with Ukraine.

This doesn’t mean that crypto chose a side however because many believe Russia could start using crypto to bypass international trade sanctions and Putin already expressed interest in using BTC for the same purpose and potentially for trading oil in the long term.