The Central Bank of the Russian Federation weakened control over foreign trade operations of business due to sanctions

The Bank of Russia has become less likely to regard atypical foreign trade operations of domestic business structures as an attempt to cash out or withdraw money abroad. The Central Bank decided to reduce control due to sanctions and the complication of international payments, said Ilya Yasinsky, head of the department for financial monitoring and currency control of the Bank of Russia.

According to him, before the start of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine and the Western sanctions that followed, the Central Bank qualified almost any changes in payment chains as suspicious transactions, but now the regulator has “loosened the filters” a little.

“We understand why this is being done in the current conditions: in order to bypass the restrictions that are artificially imposed on us from outside. Such complex payment schemes are tied to building new logistics chains in order to ensure the import of necessary goods, ”explained in an interview. RBC position of the Bank of Russia, Mr. Yasinsky.

According to official data from the Bank of Russia, last year the volume of suspicious transactions of Russian companies with “signs of withdrawal of funds abroad” was the lowest for the entire monitoring period – 36 billion rubles. At the same time, the withdrawal of money under import schemes through the countries of the Customs Union more than doubled – from 5 billion to 13 billion rubles.

Ilya Yasinsky believes that such a sharp increase is due to the fact that “the organizers of suspicious schemes had difficulty withdrawing funds through other channels due to sanctions.” The Rosfinmonitoring report states that in 2022-2023 the volume of suspicious cross-border transactions is decreasing. According to RBC’s interlocutor in the department, both business entities and banks “are extremely interested in maintaining trusting relationships with their partners from friendly countries.”

Alexander Kislov