The Supreme Court sided with the bank's client
The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation allowed opening a bank account without presenting the passport of the person in whose name it is being opened. The highest authority made this decision after considering the claim of a resident of Perm against the bank, which had previously refused to provide this service to the man.
In October 2022, the future plaintiff applied to a regional branch of one of the large banks with an application to open a deposit in favor of a friend who could not come to the bank on her own. He wanted to open an account and deposit 30 thousand rubles into it, but he was denied this. The reason is the absence of a photocopy of the passport. The bank explained that if the person for whom it is planned to open an account fails to appear, it is necessary to provide photocopies of the completed passport pages. The employee must mark them as “provided by the depositor when opening a deposit account.” Moreover, the photocopy does not have to be certified by a notary. This, according to employees, is necessary to identify a potential client. The plaintiff objected that he could verbally provide passport details, the address at which the woman for whom he wanted to open an account was registered, her TIN and other data. Nevertheless, he was refused. The man considered this illegal and went to court, but lost. The appellate and cassation courts agreed with the decision of the first instance.
However, the Supreme Court did not agree with the position of its colleagues. It indicated that for personal identification, verbally communicated data has the same legal force as a photocopy not certified by a notary. As for the original passport, it must be kept by the owner and cannot be transferred to third parties. The court decisions were overturned, the case was sent for a new trial to the court of first instance.