gavinmac Today I stopped in to LED and found the T-Bank booth. The first thing they did was ask for my phone number to send a SMS. Didn't need to be a Russian number. Unfortunately for whatever reason both my US and UK SIMs are not receiving messages from them. This was the case when I tried to create an account online previously. Both numbers are functional in Russia otherwise. So with that said; if you have a international phone that gets SMS messages from Russian numbers you should be fine. Oh, and the T-Bank guy did offer "my friend can register under his name for a Russian SIM card for you for 3000 RUB" but I declined.