Apple ukine podporo za sankcionirane ruske banke v App Store

ApplePay – Applova storitev digitalne denarnice – ne zagotavlja več podpore ruskim bankam po sankcijah ZDA in njihovih zahodnih zaveznikov. Iz App Store so bile odstranjene tudi aplikacije Promsvyabank – ruske banke, ki jo podpira država.

Sankcioniranje Rusije

Apple’s removal of Russian financial services was poročali by Russian news outlet RBC on Thursday. Three of Promsvyabank’s applications have vanished from the Apple store: mobile banking, PBS investments, and PBS business. Meanwhile, the Google Play Store has also deleted the banking app, but not the latter two.

Rusija je v sredo napovedala "posebne vojaške operacije" v Ukrajini in kmalu zatem začela napadati državno vojaško infrastrukturo. Številne zahodne države so to potezo obsodile kot "invazijo" in kršitev mednarodnega prava, vključno z Združenimi državami.

Yesterday, President Joe Biden razglasitve American sanctions on four of Russia’s largest banks, in order to “limit Russia’s ability to do business in dollars, euros, pounds, and yen to be part of the global economy.”

Čeprav so bile aplikacije odstranjene iz Applove spletne trgovine, bo njihova funkcionalnost še naprej delovala za stranke, ki so jih že prenesle.

V e-poštnem sporočilu poslovnim strankam je PSB dejal, da poskuša ponovno namestiti aplikacijo PSB Business v Applovi trgovini. Tiste, ki nimajo aplikacije, so spodbudili k uporabi »PSB Internet Bank« na svoji spletni strani.

Kljub temu je z novimi sankcijami dostop Promsvyabank do ameriškega finančnega sistema popolnoma prekinjen.

"Vsa njihova sredstva v jurisdikciji ZDA so zamrznjena, ameriškim državljanom in subjektom pa je prepovedano poslovati z njimi brez posebnega dovoljenja urada za nadzor tujega premoženja," je v izjavi zapisalo ameriško ministrstvo za finance.

V petek je tudi ruska centralna banka potrdila, da Apple Pay in Google Pay ne bosta več združljiva za uporabnike debetnih in kreditnih kartic, ki so jih izdale sankcionirane banke.

Vloga Crypto v konfliktu

Crypto has been in the spotlight lately as a tool for easily sending money across borders to political causes. Earlier this month, Bitcoin was being used to raise money for a protest movement in Canada which banks had been naročil not to service by the Canadian government.

This week, crypto has been used to lijak over $4.1 million in funds to the Ukrainian military to stave off Russia’s invasion. Meanwhile, one of the largest European mining pools has elected to stop servicing Russian customers, showing solidarity with Ukraine. This may prove disappointing for president Vladimir Putin, who has previously spodbujati crypto mining as a profitable industry where Russia has “a lot of advantages”.

That doesn’t mean crypto has chosen a side, however: Some believe Russia may start using crypto to bypass international trade sanctions placed on the nation. Putin also expressed interest in uporabo Bitcoin for precisely this purpose in October, and potentially for trading oil in the long term.