“Another line of defense is being created against the actions of financial swindlers”
Starting July 25, a new financial mechanism will be launched in Russia, according to which banks will have to return money stolen by fraudsters to clients. True, not in all cases, but only if the banks themselves allowed the transfer of money to scammers. Nevertheless the main initiator of the innovation– Central Bank – believes that this initiative will significantly reduce people’s financial losses from the actions of scammers. Now scammers will have to confront not confused and financially unprepared citizens, but banks that are very powerful in all respects, including security services. Will this stop the wave of financial fraud that has been sweeping the country for many years now, MK? found out from experts.
Photo: ru.freepik.com
Financial fraud in Russia has become a real national disaster – and the authorities admit this. According to official data from the Bank of Russia, over the past year, crooks stole almost 16 billion rubles from Russians. Fraudsters managed to make over a million successful financial transactions without the consent of clients – a third more than in 2022. At the same time, banks repelled almost 35 million attacks by cyber fraudsters aimed at stealing money from citizens. In the first quarter of this year, almost 5 billion rubles were stolen from bank clients. But the worst thing is that people can only return mere pennies – 7-8% of the stolen goods.
These, we recall, are the data of the Central Bank. But some independent experts believe that the real picture is even more depressing: the true scale of thefts – more, and returns – less, and they do not exceed 2-3%.
A new law coming into force in the last week of July aims to change this situation. It has two main goals: firstly, not to leave citizens who are often defenseless in the face of financial scammers alone with them. And secondly, to make it possible for the affected people to return the money lost as a result of the scam. These goals are achieved, according to the intention of the authors of the innovation, by actively including banks in the chain of interested parties, which cease to be “blind” performers of operations – even fraudulent ones, but begin to bear responsibility for failure to prevent criminal acts.
According to the new law, banks must verify customers' money transfers and reimburse them for stolen goods. But only in cases where the transfer of funds to the details of the scammers occurred through the fault of banking organizations. Key point: the account to which the scammers transferred the money must be in a special database of the Bank of Russia. Next, the bank is obliged to return these funds to the client – within 30 days after receiving the application from the injured party. After which, extracting money from the fraudster becomes a problem for the bank, which has security services, computer specialists, and a staff of lawyers. It must be assumed that dealing with them will be much less pleasant and comfortable for financial swindlers than, relatively speaking, with a lonely pensioner who is dying…
However, before the “cool” ones It is not necessary to bring the matter to a criminal showdown. The new law provides for a two-day “cooling off” period, during which the bank will not transfer money to a suspicious account. The bank will notify the client about the suspicious transaction. And he, even if he is under the psychological influence of attackers, in two days of “cooling down” can come to his senses and cancel the transfer.
Another option of the new law: banks are ordered to disable access to remote services to droppers who engage in withdrawal and cashing of stolen funds if information about illegal actions committed was received from the police. In the meantime, banks receive information about droppers from the Central Bank database.
As Anatoly Aksakov, Chairman of the State Duma Committee on the Financial Market, explained, a specially created Central Bank system monitors transfers from bank accounts. The system is digital, and it has a large analytical base on the numbers of attackers and the nature of transfers. “If money is transferred to the fraudsters’ account, the credit institution receives a signal that the operation cannot be carried out and must be suspended, – the deputy said. – We hope that thanks to these laws, many citizens will be able to protect their funds from criminals,” – he concluded.
How justified are these hopes and how effective will the new mechanism for protecting citizens' savings be? With this question «MK» turned to experts – lawyers and financiers.
“Of course, this is a positive innovation that will force banks to monitor customer remittances more closely. But, unfortunately, these measures alone are not enough. Note that even before this, banks were obliged to return to the client money stolen from accounts by fraudsters, but only if the transfer was made without the client’s consent. That is, in fact, the money was stolen from the account. This happens extremely rarely these days, given modern banking security systems. It's the same here. For the most part, scammers will use “clean” ones. accounts, and when they get into the Bank of Russia database, they will begin to urgently change them. Thus, cases of fraud prevention will also be isolated. To increase the effectiveness of measures to combat fraudulent transfers, it is necessary to introduce a cooling period for any transfers exceeding a certain amount, at least for several hours, and better yet. days. So that a person can change his decision, because in most cases the citizen understands that he was deceived quite quickly – in the first 3 hours after the operation.»
“The key essence of the innovation: if the bank could know that it sent money to those who had already been convicted of participating in fraud, then it will be obliged to return this money from its own funds if the sender declares the loss of money.
That is, it doesn’t matter whether the bank connected to the special database of the Bank of Russia or not, checked the transfer or not, but in the case when it transferred money to someone who is in this database, it is the bank’s fault, and it will no longer be able to hide behind the wording agreement and references to the “correctly executed” order for the transfer of funds.
Plus for individuals – another line of defense is being created against damage caused by fraudsters. The downside is that we are talking only about transfers to those who are already in the special database of the Bank of Russia.
As for the two-day cooling period, banks have accumulated huge amounts of data and therefore can themselves calculate the recipient of the funds based on various criteria  ;participating in fraud. But previously the law did not allow not to transfer funds at the discretion of the bank. Now banks have 2 days if they doubt the recipient. And if in two days the consumer of services stops the transfer, then “everyone will be happy.”…
Plus – banks will not lose confidence in them due to the actions of fraudsters. Minus – Bank algorithms are not always so good that the delay in transferring money is justified. In this case, the client will have to insist for a long time that he understands and assumes all the risks of such a transfer.