Apple is giving Greek customers a free month of iCloud storage

Apple has decided not to charge Greek iCloud users for their paid storage plans for 30 days, following the implementation of capital controls in the country at the end of last month, 9to5Mac reports.

Greece put capital controls in place on June 29, which limited cash withdrawals to €60 per day, and stopped international payments. Since then, people and businesses in Greece have started to lose access to some paid internet services, such as iTunes, cloud storage, and app stores. This is because international credit card payments and services like PayPal had been blocked, meaning that Greek people can't buy web-based services from foreign firms.

When the capital controls first came into place, some Greek iCloud users received an email from Apple explaining that since the company was unable to take the monthly payment their premium subscription needed, their iCloud account would be downgraded to the 5GB free program, Bloomberg reported at the time.

Now, paying Greek customers effectively have a month of free iCloud storage. But if they are still unable to renew their plan once the 30 days is up, they still might lose their paid storage plan. However, it looks like things might be looking up for Greece, as it reached an agreement with its eurozone creditors this morning.

Apple isn't the only company to give Greek users something of a grace period. According to a list being maintained by Tech.eu, Google has provided an extension period for Greek users until August 1. Some firms are offering longer payment holidays, or an extension without specifics, like Amazon's web services division AWS. Other services like Buffer are offering access for free until Greek the situation is resolved.

Web hosting and domain registry firm GoDaddy told us last week that they had also started renewing expiring subscriptions for Greek companies.

Tech.eu's crowdsourced list is constantly being updated, based on this Facebook post and input from other Greek users, as well as tech companies themselves.

Capital controls have been causing some big problems for Greek startups, some of which have been unable to pay for cloud storage, ads, domain hosting or credit card processing services from providers outside Greece since the capital controls came into place.

To help smaller Greek companies operate as normal during the crisis, the founders of Greek startup Bugsense, John Vlachoyiannis and Panos Papadopoulos, have started a site allowing Greek startups to apply for help to cover their costs from foreign supporters, with investor Marc Andreessen even pledging his support.