🇷🇺 Monzo in Russia [Wiki]

A number is Russian banks have international sanctions which makes them unable to connect to the Visa or MasterCard networks, meaning customers have had problems with payments online or in shops.

I know that Sberbank’s sanctions consist of access restrictions to the EU and US capital markets but I couldn’t find if they have the Visa or MasterCard restriction. Russia have created their own Visa and MasterCard rival called Mir for Russians to avoid these issues. I do know Sberbank replaced all 10 million of their own Visa and MasterCards with Mir which suggests they had issues with them. If it isn’t the restricted access, then it could simply be they haven’t updated their BINs because they don’t use Visa/MasterCard anymore.

Either way, you may have problems using western payments in Russia with certain banks. You should contact customer services, in app, to see if they know anything more really.

4 Likes