Banks must report to the Central Bank on how they analyze the activities of their payment agents

As Kommersant found out, in the first half of April, banks must report to the Central Bank on ways to analyze the activities of their payment agents. The regulator’s attention may become even more intense due to the tragedy at Crocus – uncontrolled P2P payments, including through the fast payment system (SBP) created by the Central Bank, using dummies, are used to finance terrorism. So far, neither the regulator nor legislators want to limit such transfers, however, the rules for identification during transactions may become stricter.

As Kommersant learned, after the license was revoked from Qiwi Bank for systematic violations of legislation in the field of money laundering and terrorist financing (115-FZ), the Central Bank asked credit institutions about the measures they were taking to identify the real activities of payment counterparties. In letters sent on March 5 and 10 (“Kommersant has reviewed the documents”), the regulator asks banks to provide information on the implementation of 13-MR (Central Bank guidelines) within 30 days. We are talking about checking the correctness of using the assigned MCC codes for the actual activities of the enterprise. The Bank of Russia refused to comment on the results of the survey of market participants.

MCC code is an intra-industry term not enshrined in the legislation of the Russian Federation. As a rule, MCC are determined in relation to the company’s OKVED code. According to the Chairman of the State Duma Committee on the Financial Market, Anatoly Aksakov, banks use MCC codes within the framework of the rules of payment systems.

“Linking MCC with OKVED often masks the real background of the payment. However, dismantling such a link will require the creation of an alternative, which means time and investment,” clarifies independent expert Andrei Barkhota. “This is a serious problem, and the Federal Tax Service and law enforcement agencies are involved in identifying illegal activities,” explains Mr. Aksakov. “The non-compliance of actual activities with the OKVED codes specified during registration is rather a matter of monitoring the work of companies. But if fiscal or law enforcement agencies have proposals, we will, of course, consider them.”

P2P (person to person) transfers have become an even more pressing problem in the fight against the illegal payment market. This technology has become commonplace with the development of SBP, including for illegal payments. The use of several dummies (drops) in the transfer chain allows making the payment de facto anonymous, Kommersant’s interlocutors in the payment market say. The problem manifested itself, among other things, in the investigation of the terrorist attack at Crocus. “Terrorists and extremists often try to transfer funds to one account,” explains Mr. Barhota. “From payment systems, this may look like a transfer of participants at an event in a restaurant to the person who paid the entire bill, that is, barely noticeable.”

The Central Bank’s recommendations on strengthening control over certain transactions of individual clients (4-MR) dated March 29 have not yet yielded positive results. Banks block some payments, but when providing checks, including from crypto exchanges, they remove restrictions. “Countering high-risk P2P transfers using drop accounts is now a priority area of ​​financial monitoring,” the Bank of Russia assured Kommersant. “The Central Bank, in cooperation with banks, is working to implement countermeasure tools.”

But we are not talking about limiting P2P transfers. “The fight against money laundering is a complex task that cannot be solved by simple bans,” emphasizes Mr. Aksakov. “SBP is an important part of the payment infrastructure, affecting tens of millions of citizens, so any decisions must be as balanced as possible.” More promising, in his opinion, may be improving information exchange between mobile operators, banks and law enforcement agencies. The head of the Financial Technologies Association, Roman Prokhorov, adds that “as practice shows, tightening control affects first and foremost conscientious market participants, complicating their lives and increasing costs.” Those against whom the measures are directed quickly find new methods of transfers, the expert adds, and “squeezing gray and black traffic into cryptocurrency schemes will only significantly complicate control.”

Ksenia Dementieva, Maxim Builov, Ksenia Kulikova