Samsung Pay to stop working with Russia's Mir payment system from April 3

MOSCOW, March 27 (Reuters) - Samsung Pay, a payment service owned by South Korea's Samsung Electronics, will stop working with Russia's national Mir payment cards from April 3, the two payment systems said on Wednesday.

Payment cards issued by Mir have become more important since its U.S. rivals suspended operations in Russia after the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and their payment cards which were issued in the country stopped working abroad.

In February U.S. authorities imposed additional sweeping sanctions against Russia, including on its National Payment Card System (NSPK), which operates Mir cards.

"Starting April 3, 2024, adding and using Mir cards in Samsung Pay will not be available," Samsung Pay said in a statement on its website.

"At the same time, the functionality of adding and using club cards/loyalty cards in the Samsung Pay app will work unchanged."

Samsung Pay said its services would continue to operate in Belarus, which has also come under heavy Western sanctions.

The NSPK confirmed that the use of Mir cards in the Samsung Pay application would be suspended from April 3.

"The mobile payment service pre-installed on Samsung smartphones is suspending its partnership with the Mir payment system," the NSPK said, adding that the Mir Pay application can still be downloaded from the RuStore, a Russian app for Android users, and the Android App Gallery.

Reuters verified that the Mir Pay app was not available on the Apple Store and Google Pay.

"In an attempt to complicate the lives of Russians, the Americans have synchronised with the Koreans," Anton Gorelkin, deputy head of the Russian parliament's committee on information policy, wrote on the Telegram app on Wednesday. (Reporting by Elena Fabrichnaya; Writing by Lucy Papachristou Editing by Ros Russell)