Named the consequences of tightening the rules of money transfers

The number of gray schemes and cash in the hands of Russians will grow

The state may oblige banks to make money transfers with information about the recipients. Experts agree that this seemingly benign measure, aimed at combating fraud and money laundering, will seriously complicate life for both credit institutions and their clients. And there is practically no benefit from it.

The initiative comes from Rosfinmonitoring. The agency made adjustments to its bill, the first version of which, published in early March 2023, was met with hostility by the banking community. This is a basic set of information provided when sending money. The main comments of the banks were not taken into account, the only thing that saves the situation is that the new rules can come into effect only from January 1, 2026.

The current version of the anti-money laundering law requires that money transfers on cards and accounts (both domestic and cross-border) be accompanied by the personal data of the payer, and not the recipient. Disorder! – says Rosfinmonitoring: data on the recipient must certainly be present, and specifically – the surname and initials, the series and number of the passport, or the taxpayer identification number (TIN). In addition, the department proposes to limit the amount of transfers that are carried out without opening a bank account to the amount of 100 thousand rubles, or the equivalent in foreign currency. The justification of Rosfinmonitoring states that the main purpose of the changes is “to solve the problem of the lack of necessary and sufficient information from financial organizations about the parties to the operation.” Like, banks do not store the recipient’s data and cannot provide them at the request of the department.

According to the Association of Banks of Russia, the new rules are fraught with the growth of numerous shadow methods of transferring funds. Experts interviewed by MK add a few of their comments to this.

“Until recently, Russia followed the path of simplifying financial services, and now mobile transfers from card to card have become so convenient that they are already paying for even apples on the market,” says Artem Deev, head of the analytical department at AMarkets. – The need to indicate the TIN and any other data is a clear step backwards. In addition, many people are used to helping their relatives or simply transferring a large amount as a gift, say, for a wedding. Do you remember at least your TIN? And the TIN of your mother or brother?

Yes, while there is a limit of 100 thousand rubles, and, it seems, up to this threshold, transfers can be made as before. But there is a possibility that in the future the regulator will lower the bar. And from the point of view of countering money laundering, the idea looks frankly doubtful, because if a fraudster or terrorist decides to transfer a conditional half a million, they will simply break this amount into six transactions of less than 100 thousand rubles each.

“Let’s add here the traditional problem of the safety of personal data,” notes Deev. – And even if everything goes smoothly, the banks will definitely need additional capacity to store and process new arrays of information. They will also have to invest in setting up systems to verify the details of the recipients of the funds. Accordingly, tariffs for customers will increase. Will the measure lead to the growth of gray schemes and the withdrawal of citizens into cash? Of course it will. And the point is not that people are bad – but that they do not want unnecessary troubles. The amount of “cash” on hand has already reached a record 17 trillion rubles, and the introduction of new restrictions from Rosfinmonitoring will only strengthen this trend.”

When you make a bank transfer, you don’t send money to your grandfather’s village, not to an airless space, and not even to a hollow tree on the edge of a forest (like some drug dealers do), but to certain details. Which, in turn, are tied to a specific person, with specific identification data. So it is not clear why Rosfinmonitoring needed this measure, says Mikhail Belyaev, candidate of economic sciences.

“Maybe the department just wants to make it easier for itself,” says the interlocutor of MK, “so as not to search for information about the recipients of funds on its own? And if banks do not keep this data (and, therefore, cannot provide it at the request of Rosfinmonitoring), why not solve the issue in a purely technical way? After all, there are electronic, cloud solutions that allow you to store many terabytes almost indefinitely. These are not antediluvian archival cabinets with drawers, A4 paper carriers and a conditional girl Katya assigned to them, who can go on maternity leave at any moment.