•Empirical analysis of the effect of barriers on smartphone wallet payments adoption levels in Russia.•Perceived security issues are significant and negative.•Technological issues are mostly a problem, however, does not prevent usage/adoption. Russia has become one of the largest markets for contactless transactions via smartphone wallets, however, the share of smartphone payments is still much lower than that of plastic cards. This research aims to understand how the perception of technological and security barriers impacts the probability of smartphone use for offline payments in Russia. The analysis uses a representative sample of 1016 Russian cardholders gathered via an online survey in 2019. The study shows that the perception of such barriers as the fear of losing one's smartphone, entering the smartphone password in public places and a slower payment process negatively impacts the probability of using a smartphone as a payment instrument in Russia. The results imply that there is a potential to lower at least the perceived security barriers to further smartphone payments adoption that appear due to the consumers’ lack of knowledge of how they work.