UNIT.City — місце, де люди працюють... КРАЩЕ! Обирай свій простір просто зараз 👉
Вікторія ГорбікMoney
16 May 2025, 15:03
2025-05-16
They say you can enter the Kyiv metro with a zero balance on your bank card, then it is blocked. Why does this happen and what to do next
Readers of dev.ua reported that you can get on the metro for zero hryvnias if you have no funds on your bank card. True, the card will then be blocked, but there are supposedly several manipulations to unblock it. We found out what actually happens with cards without funds and whether blocking can be avoided.
(the material from May 14, 2025 is supplemented with a comment from one of the passengers and the experience of one of the monobank employees who encountered a similar situation).
Readers of dev.ua reported that you can get on the metro for zero hryvnias if you have no funds on your bank card. True, the card will then be blocked, but there are supposedly several manipulations to unblock it. We found out what actually happens with cards without funds and whether blocking can be avoided.
(the material from May 14, 2025 is supplemented with a comment from one of the passengers and the experience of one of the monobank employees who encountered a similar situation).
«If you pay once with 0 on the card, you will be allowed to use the metro. But after that, the card will be blocked in the system. To fix this, you need to delete it from Apple/Google Pay and add it again,» a reader reported on dev.ua.
To find out what actually happens to the cards in such a case, we were advised to contact the «Metro Hotline». And there we were informed that indeed, such cases do happen quite often. But it is developing in a slightly different direction.
How to pay with a bank card
In particular, the processing of payments with any bank card works in such a way that all bank cards are placed on a stop list. But most of them get there only for a few seconds, until the amount required for entry is debited from the account. After the funds are debited, this bank card is automatically removed from the stop list by algorithms built into the electronic system.
«Because the flow of passengers is very dense, and each banking transaction requires a certain amount of time,» the metro explains.
What happens if there are no funds?
If the bank card does not have enough funds to pay for the trip (at the time of writing this material, this is 8 UAH), this card remains on the stop list.
And although a dev.ua reader says that this situation can be resolved by deleting the card from the App Store or Google Pay and entering it into these systems again, the metro claims that this will not work. According to information from representatives of the institution, even after replenishing the card, it is not removed from the stop list, since the operation was refused due to the lack of funds on the card. If the user tries to use it to pay later, the system will not let him in and he will not be able to enter the metro.
How to unblock a card
In order to unblock a bank card after it has been placed on the stop list due to lack of funds, you must:
Contact the Kyiv Metro to receive an invoice for the amount owed.
Transfer it to the bank where you opened a card account for the card that was blocked so that the process of writing off the debt can take place.
After that, the applicant should receive a receipt, which he should take to Oschadbank, which handles processing for the Kyiv Metro, to receive paper confirmation that the debt has been paid.
The client must submit the confirmation received from Oschadbank to the accounting department of the Kyiv Metro.
And only after that is his card put in the queue to be removed from the stop list.
How to avoid blocking
In the metro, passengers are usually advised to use a plastic or electronic transport card «Kyiv Digital» to pay for entrance.
«There is no failure with these cards (transport cards „Kyiv Digital“ — ed. note). If there is no money on the card, the system will not let you through. With a bank card, it happens completely differently, and restoring and removing it from the stop list is very difficult and time-consuming,» they explain on the «Metro Hotline.»
What passengers faced
The card will not work the next time if you pay, this is true, confirms one of the passengers in the comments for dev.ua.
«But if you missed the attempt to debit the card and replenish it later, then just when trying to go through the turnstiles, you will have to wait literally three minutes. And swipe the card again. They will debit for two trips. The past and the current one,» he adds.
What mono says
When asked by dev.ua, monobank co-founder Oleg Gorohovsky said that the bank had sorted out the reasons for blocking the cards and a mono colleague had just recreated one on himself. In particular, according to him:
The client goes to the metro with a card with insufficient funds, the turnstile lets him through, but, apparently, the request is processed later, the token is blocked, he tried to go in again — he was not allowed — the screen «Passage is prohibited», he replenished — the debit was passed, he entered normally
A fresh request — the same, but for old entrances — the client went to the metro in April for free, an attempt to top up came a day later, the money is still not there, later the client replenishes the account, there are no more attempts to top up from the metro, the metro blocks the token on its side, perhaps he cannot even receive a settlement for the transaction. The solution in this case is to support the metro, re-link the token, pay with another card/token/physical card.
Several European countries have been hit by a massive blackout: people are stuck in subway cars and elevators, and authorities are talking about 6–10 hours for restoration
