Apple allows third-party payment methods in Russia

There’s good news for Russians who have trouble topping up their Apple ID accounts or paying for purchases inside mobile apps. The company has officially allowed such payments to be made via external links outside of the App Store catalog. Denis Ghermanenko of CleverPumpkin writes about it.

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– Wow, Apple has allowed in-app payments to be accepted by bypassing the store via external web links. To confirm this capability, you have to pass a review and meet certain (not complicated) conditions. At a minimum, the external link for payment is hardcoded to info.plist. Apple’s commission is 27%. At the end of each month, Apple will send you an invoice and you agree to pay the commission by transfer to their account.

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Denis explains why this was done and why it’s important. It’s not about money, it’s about the very ability to pay for anything. As a reminder, since last year Apple has effectively withdrawn from Russia, and there’s only one way to top up your Apple ID account – from your MTS or Beeline mobile number. All other methods, including bank cards, are unavailable.

Basically the bank fees were just shifted to the app owner. Why? Well because in-app payments have become much less in Russia, not everyone was able to set up App Store balance top-up via MTS/Beeline. So the story here is not about discounts, etc., but about letting users pay with their bank cards, etc.

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This is very good news. Presumably we can expect updates to popular apps with this functionality. And maybe a number of «gone» apps will come back…

And we can expect to see some of the «gone» apps back.