Samsung Pay ends support for Russian Mir cards

Deutsche Welle reports this with reference to a message posted on the Samsung website.

“Previously added Mir cards will be removed from the application. Please note that Samsung Pay stores an electronic copy of the card, so its removal will not in any way affect the ability to pay with a plastic card at regular points of sale or online,” the South Korean company explained.

From April 3, it will be impossible to add new Mir cards from bank applications; these cards will not be used to pay for travel on public transport. Until now, using Samsung Pay it was possible, for example, to pay in the Moscow metro – there was the possibility of issuing a virtual Troika card.

Users still have the opportunity to add loyalty cards to Samsung Pay. This service will also continue to operate in Belarus. In this country, it will be possible to add cards from Visa and Mastercard payment systems, which have left Russia, to Samsung Pay.

In March 2022, the Apple Pay service stopped supporting Mir cards, and Google Pay suspended a pilot project to connect such cards. The mobile application of the Mir payment system – Mir Pay has been removed from the Google Play and App Gallery app stores from the Chinese company Huawei. It is now available only in the Russian RuStore store from VK and the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation.

The cancellation of the ability to use Mir cards in Apple Pay and Google Pay occurred against the backdrop of Western sanctions against Russian banks and the withdrawal of Western payment systems from Russia due to Russia’s war against Ukraine. In February 2024, the Mir card operator, the National Payment Card System (NSCP), came under American restrictions.

NSPK processes transactions on all cards in Russia, including foreign Visa and Mastercard systems, if they are issued by Russian banks, so after the departure of these payment systems, their cards continued to work within the country. The NSPK stated that the sanctions will not affect the operation of Mir cards in Russia.

Back in September 2022, the United States included the General Director of the NSPK, Vladimir Komlev, on the sanctions list. This led to the fact that the largest private and public banks in Turkey and the largest in Kazakhstan, Halyk Bank, refused to accept Mir cards. In the spring of 2024, banks in Armenia and the former subsidiary bank of Sberbank in Kazakhstan, Bereke Bank, announced their refusal to work with Mir cards.