Displaying items by tag: CFT

Natalya Manuylova, a forensic expert and teacher at the Moscow Digital School, commented on the Bank of Russia’s plans at the request of Izvestia to clarify the signs that could cause banks to consider their clients' actions suspicious.

The list of reasons for blocking an account has not been changed since they appeared in March 2012. Earlier, on February 17, it became known that the Central Bank proposes not only to introduce new criteria, but also to exclude some of the more than 100 existing ones, according to which banks recognize transactions as doubtful.

“The Bank of Russia revised the list of unusual transactions, excluding a number of signs, and added new signs taking into account the realities of the financial market. It is worth noting that the list of unusual operations only orient banks to pay special attention to operations that have signs of unusual. Unfortunately, quite often confused are signs of dubious operations and operations that have signs of unusual ones”, the expert added.

Regarding the qualifications of operations with digital and virtual assets, much will depend on the qualifications of bank employees, Natalya Manuylova added.

According to her, if bank employees do not have enough qualifications, then Rosfinmonitoring will replenish with information about operations that are not related to dubious ones.

Moreover, the market will resume pressure on the business to provide documents not related to the operation, threats to block customer accounts, delays in operations.

“For example, the symptom in section 11,“ The transaction is related to the acquisition or sale of virtual assets ”should be adapted for banks in the existing risk management system. The Bank should develop its own additional criteria for qualifying such an operation as “doubtful,” for example, the amount of the transaction, the business reputation of the counterparty, the counterparty’s bank, and so on. Considering that a number of signs are quite common, I think that the Bank of Russia is waiting for a rather large number of requests from both banks and customers, but here it’s already in the form of complaints, ”concluded the forensic expert.

In February, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, during a meeting with the head of Sberbank German Gref, said that the bank’s technologies and services would be used to simplify the life of Russians and to create a state-owned digital platform.

Source: IZ.ru

From 01.01.2020, a new entity will appear on the financial market - the operator of the investment platform. In accordance with subparagraph 7) of clause 1 of article 2 of Federal law dated 02.08.2019 No. 259-FL "On attracting investments using investment platforms and on amending certain legislative acts of the Russian Federation" the operator of the investment platform is a business company created in accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation, carrying out activities to organize investment attraction and included by the Bank of Russia in the register of investment platform operators.

It is worth noting that from 01.01.2020 the amendments to the Federal Law of 07.08.2001 also come into force. No. 115-FL "On combating the legalization (laundering) of proceeds from crime and the financing of terrorism" (hereinafter - Law No. 115-FL), according to which:

1. Operators of investment platforms become the subject of Law No. 115-FL (Supplement to the first part of Article 5 with a new fourth paragraph of the above law);

2. The operators of investment platforms are entrusted with the obligations specified in Article 7 of Law No. 115-FL, including the application of measures to freeze (block) money or other property in accordance with the requirements established by subparagraph 6 of paragraph 1 of Article 7 of Law No. 115- Federal Law. 

3. The operators of investment platforms have been granted the rights specified in Article 7 of Law No. 115-FL, in particular:

- simplified identification of investment platform operators with respect to customers in certain cases, namely: when concluding agreements on the provision of investment assistance services involving investment using the investment platform for an amount not exceeding 100,000 rubles, provided that all settlements are carried out exclusively in non-cash form on accounts opened with a Russian credit institution;

- an assignment of the identification procedure to third parties - on the basis of the contract to entrust the credit organization with the identification or simplified identification of the individual customer, as well as the identification of the client’s representative, beneficiary and beneficial owner.

4. The internal control rules of the Investment Platform Operators are developed taking into account the requirements approved by the Central Bank of the Russian Federation in agreement with the authorized body, and approved by the head of the organization.

5. Qualification requirements for special officials responsible for the implementation of internal control rules, targeted internal control rules, as well as requirements for training and education, identification of clients, client representatives (including identification of the sole executive body as a representative of the client), beneficiaries and beneficial owners are determined in accordance with the procedure established by the Bank of Russia.

Please note that non-compliance with the requirements of Law No. 115-FL entails the prosecution of an official and organization on the basis of Article 15.27 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation. The consequences of non-compliance with the requirements of the AML/CFT legislation May result in criminal prosecution.

For questions regarding the organization of work on the implementation of Law No. 115-FL and training, write to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

On March 27, 2019, training for students of the 7th stream of the BCL (Blockchain Lawyers) supplementary education program was completed at the Federation Council. 

As part of that, the audience in a round table format along with the first deputy chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Economic Policy, the founders and teachers of the course, as well as invited experts discussed the regulation of the digital economy and modern technologies in Russia.

Natalya Manuilova paid special attention to the following issues: that the Bank of Russia had several new and important documents aimed at fulfilling the requirements of the legislation in the area of countering the legalization (laundering) of proceeds from crime and the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT). Important on the approach to the organization of work in this direction.

Thus, one of these documents is Directive No. 5083-U of 02/27/2019 “On Amendments to the Regulation of the Bank of Russia of March 2, 2012 No. 375-P“ On the Requirements for the Rules of Internal Control of a Credit Organization to Counter Legalization (Money Laundering) criminal proceeds and the financing of terrorism. ” In accordance with the changes that will come into force on 04/05/2019, the ML/TF risk management systems in credit institutions will have to take into account the results of a national risk assessment of transactions (transactions) in order to legalize (launder) proceeds from crime, and the financing of terrorism, posted on the official website of the authorized body on the Internet information and telecommunications network.

The possibility for credit institutions to install in the Risk Management Programs “other factors independently determined by the credit organization” scares many, but these factors must be fixed, fixed in the Rules of the credit organization. And no one has canceled a systematic approach - why are some requirements for some, and others for others? “Documentary fixation” will compel to substantiate certain AML/CFT measures.

In accordance with the Bank of Russia Newsletter No. IN-014-12/27 of 03/27/2019 “On Approaches to the Procedure for the Implementation of Credit Rights by Credit Institutions Provided by Sub-clause 1.1 of Clause 1 of Article 7 of Federal Law No. 115 “On Counteracting Legalization (Laundering) of Revenues criminal proceeds and the financing of terrorism” the Bank of Russia draws the attention of credit institutions to the need to follow the results of their assessment of the extent (level) of the risk of a client’s operations for AML/FT when implementing these powers in accordance with its own rules of internal control in order to counter the legalization (laundering) of proceeds from crime and the financing of terrorism.

Will high-risk transactions (deals) with digital assets be added to the list? Definitely! Companies need to start preparing letter templates - explanations about the sources of funds received to the account, etc.

The Bank of Russia still had to pay attention to the not quite adequate measures of credit institutions regarding blocking accounts under federal law 115, inquiries about the source of clients funds, whose operations in principle do not bear and cannot bear the risks of ML/FT and the risk of involvement credit organization in the scheme of ML/FT.

Let's hope for positive changes, because for a long time, the “struggle” of a number of banks on AML/CFT issues has discredited the AML/CFT system as a whole, and only the one who has not come to the bank does not care about 115-FL.

At the same time, the information letter of Rosfinmonitoring dated March 1, 2019 No. 59 “On Methodological Recommendations for Assessing ML/TF Risks by Organizations that Operate with Monetary Funds or Other Property and individual entrepreneur” was discussed.

From which it was seen that there are three types of risks:

- risks associated with countries and individual geographic territories (country risks);

- customer related risks (customer risks);

- risks associated with products, services, operations (transactions) or supply chains made by the customer (operational risks), a high level for operations with digital assets.