In the Russian App Store, the SBOL and Investr applications are no longer available – unofficial versions of the Sberbank Online and SberInvestor services, IXBT.com draws the attention .
The original Sberbank Online app was previously removed from the app store due to sanctions.
Sberbank's unofficial apps were uploaded to the App Store last week. In their description, Sberbank was never mentioned, but when downloading SBOL and entering the Sberbank card number, users received a complete analogue of Sberbank Online.
In early July, it was reported that against the backdrop of a shortage of chips for bank cards in Russia, Sber began to “reimplant” chips from non-activated cards into new ones.
“Our colleagues from the issuing center came up with a solution that is close to ingenious — the reimplantation of bank card chips, that is, we began to “pick out” the chips from the cards and insert them into new cards,” the Sberbank Cyber Compliance Department said.
On February 24, immediately after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Sberbank of Russia came under US sanctions.