While it was about a month ago that Apple Pay reached Russia, the country’s only residents able to use the payments service were Sberbank customers with MasterCard cards. Fortunately, however, nine further financial institutions are now offering Apple Pay in Russia.
As noticed by MacRumors, Apple Pay’s Russian website has recently been updated to list Alfa-Bank, Bank Saint Petersburg, MTS Bank, Raiffeisenbank, Rocketbank, Tinkoff Bank, VTB 24 and Yandex.Money as Apple Pay partners. Russian Standard Bank will soon add support as well, according to the website.
In Russia, Apple Pay can be used to make fast and secure in-store payments with compatible devices including the iPhone 7, 7 Plus, 6S, 6S Plus, 6, 6 Plus and SE and all Apple Watch models. Russian users with eligible payment cards can register those cards with Apple Pay using the “Add Credit or Debit Card” function in the Wallet app on an iPhone 5 or later running at least iOS 8.1.
Right now, Apple Pay is available in 12 territories; the others are the United States, Australia, Canada, China, France, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Rumor has suggested that Germany and Taiwan are among the next markets in line.