A bill allowing banks to freeze funds that a fraudster stole from a client’s account could be passed this year, Alexey Voylukov, vice president of the Association of Russian Banks (ADB), told Vedomosti on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF).
“This has already reached the level of the president and has gone down, so we hope that this year these changes in one form or another will be adopted,” he said.
Voilukov explained that at the moment the bill is ready to be submitted to the State Duma. ADB collects positive opinions from all interested departments – the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Russia. With the latter, according to the vice-president of ADB, the greatest difficulties arose. So, for a year and a half, the regulator asked for additional clarifications and additions to the document.
At the moment, the bill is conceptually supported, said Voilukov. The doubts of market participants are related to the protection of personal data, but in reality there will be no violations in this area due to changes, he concluded.
The bill proposed by ADB will work as follows: in the event of an unauthorized write-off of funds, the client can apply with such a statement to his bank. He, through Fincert and the Central Bank, will transfer the information to the counterparty’s credit organization. She, in turn, will freeze the specified amount and request documents confirming the legitimacy of receiving funds.
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