The QIWI service has again stopped accepting rubles to fund a Steam wallet, a fact confirmed by a socialbites.ca correspondent.
Yesterday, several Russian media outlets claimed that the option to top up a wallet from a ruble account had returned. The report said QIWI converted rubles into dollars before sending the funds to the Steam account balance, with a processing fee of roughly 7%.
Yet within about an hour the platform displayed the error “Subscriber ID not found,” blocking any renewal. By the time this was last checked, socialbites.ca learned that the ruble top-up button had vanished from the available options entirely. QIWI reportedly still offers a path to fund Steam via a Kazakh wallet converted to tenge, though that method incurs about a 10% commission.
Steam has restricted payment methods for users in Russia since March 2022. Presently, purchases can be made using PayPal or the Steam Wallet itself, with Russian bank cards not accepted by the service.
A prior Steam simulator featured a pessimistic view from a Russian provincial resident, illustrating frustrations with payment options and the sometimes shifting terms of service.