• MTS will accept digital rubles through My MTS, its online store and services already using MTS Pay from 1 September
  • Rostelecom will start with one-off website payments, while recurring payments and automatic top-ups depend on further Bank of Russia platform support

The fact

MTS will begin accepting digital-ruble payments on 1 September in the My MTS app and its online store, and says the option will be available across services where MTS Pay is already integrated. MegaFon told Vedomosti that the digital ruble will initially be an additional way to pay for telecom services. Rostelecom is also preparing support, starting with one-off payments on its website and planning to add the option to customer accounts later.

The launches coincide with the first mandatory stage of Russia’s digital-ruble rollout. The Bank of Russia says qualifying merchants with more than RUB120 million in prior-year revenue and the required payment-acquiring arrangements must accept digital-ruble payments from 1 September 2026. The central bank operates the digital-ruble platform, while customers access their accounts through participating banks. Rostelecom said recurring payments and automatic top-ups will follow when the platform supports those functions.

The assessment

For operators, adding the digital ruble is less about a new checkout button than about where it plugs into the billing system. MTS can extend the option through services already using MTS Pay, while Rostelecom is starting with one-off web payments. That allows acceptance to begin without every type of customer payment being supported at once.

Recurring billing is the harder boundary. Monthly service charges and automatic top-ups are routine parts of telecom collection, yet Rostelecom says those functions depend on capabilities that the Bank of Russia platform still has to provide. The announcements do not quantify transaction costs or expected use, so there is no basis yet for saying the digital ruble changes telecom payment economics.

For BTW readers, 1 September marks payment acceptance rather than full billing integration. The more useful test is whether the digital ruble moves from one-off transactions into recurring charges and automatic top-ups within operators’ existing billing systems.

What to watch

Watch whether Rostelecom adds digital-ruble payments to customer accounts and when the Bank of Russia enables recurring payments and automatic top-ups. MTS’s expansion across services using MTS Pay and MegaFon’s first detailed implementation will show how broadly the new payment method reaches operator billing. Transaction volumes or usage shares, if disclosed, would show whether customers use it beyond the initial compliance launch.