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Russia targets Apple over banking apps

Russia's antitrust agency has set its sights on Apple, saying that the US firm has removed banking and payments apps from its App Store, according to Reuters.

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Russia targets Apple over banking apps

Editorial

This content has been selected, created and edited by the Finextra editorial team based upon its relevance and interest to our community.

The Federal Antimonopoly Service wrote to Apple detailing its concerns about the restrictions, which leave Russian banks unable to offer services, says Reuters.

Not only have most Russian banks been removed from the App Store, users are unable to install apps from outside of the store.

The agency says Apple is showing "signs of violation of antimonopoly legislation," and it is asking for a "detailed, motivated position on this issue".

Last month, the US filed a lawsuit against Apple, accusing the firm of monopolising the smartphone market through a host of actions, including the blocking of third-party apps from offering contactless payments.

Earlier this year, the company moved to head off European Commission antitrust charges by offering third-party providers access to the NFC chip technology in iOS devices.

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Comments: (3)

Pavlo Sidelov

Pavlo Sidelov CTO at SDK.finance

It's so funny to see how Russian barbarians and terrorists suffer when civilization leaves them in caves...

Ketharaman Swaminathan

Ketharaman Swaminathan Founder and CEO at GTM360 Marketing Solutions

As soon as Russia invaded Ukraine, I recall reading that Google canceled Google Pay in Russia, thus leaving many Moscow Metro commuters stranded without a key payment method. Going by that, I'd assumed that the US sanctions announced immediately after the invasion covered not only SWIFT but also Russian (and American) apps on Apple AppStore and Google Play Store. Ergo, I'm surprised that this took so long. 

A Finextra member 

Likely the Russian government plans to seize some Apple assets in Russia with the accusation that Apple is in violatio of the Russian anti-competition legislation. This is why this accusation comes now and not in 2022.  

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