The state Duma adopted in the first reading amendments to the AML / CFT law (115-FZ), which should eliminate the denial of transactions or block accounts for formal reasons the banks. Experts point to the gaps in the adopted version and the fear that in such formulations, the draft would only worsen the situation. The Central Bank supported the bill, believing that it will reduce the regulatory burden. Bankers say the project is unnecessary and claim that already disclose to clients the reasons for refusal on request.The state Duma on July 9, in the first reading adopted a bill that requires the introduction of government amendments to 115-FZ. They, in particular, suggest a ban on unmotivated blocking accounts and refusal to conduct transactions to customers under the AML / CFT legislation. As previously explained the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Mikhail Mishustin, the amendments directed that “banks will not be able, without giving reasons to terminate the contracts or to refuse to execute operations according to instructions of the client.” This innovation will affect both legal and physical persons. Now banks if you suspect that the client’s actions committed with the purpose of money laundering or terrorist financing, shall have the right to block the account and to refuse to carry out operations without disclosing the reasons for its decision. If the draft is adopted, the credit institution will be required no later than five working days to provide a “reasoned explanation of the reasons for such decisions”.Customers whom banks have refused service of the AML / CFT criteria stored in the database “refuseniks” and in fact denied access to banking services. Excluded from this database can be on the court or on the basis of the verdict of the interdepartmental Commission created at the Central Bank. In February, the Central Bank reported that rehabilitated was about 2% of the customers of the banks from the black list in the anti-money laundering law of the total number of customers.The Bank of Russia supported the bill, as it “aims to reduce the regulatory burden and provides for the reduction in the number of information requests from credit institutions for their customers, respectively, will decrease the number of failures, including the non-submission of documents.” This follows from the amendments to item 11 of article 7 of 115-FZ, which excludes the right of credit institutions to refuse service if the client fails to provide any document, evidence in favor of its credibility and legitimacy.However, bankers claim that, and so open their customers who were refused service at the anti-money laundering criteria, but only upon their written request. But this is not always the case. “The explanation indicates the appearance of a refined subject to a claim for which precisely and rather to build the line�� protection”,— said a top Manager of one of the major banks. In the case of a mandatory provision of the justification block 115-FZ, may increase the number of judicial claims from legal persons, he said. Officially, the majority of respondents “b” major banks declined to comment.According to the Deputy head NSFR Alexander Naumov, the text of the bill, which passed in the first reading, there is an internal contradiction. “On the one hand, banks are granted the right to hold suspicions of money laundering in the presence of the fact of failure, with another — in the same bill there is a ban on the refusal of a credit organization if there is a suspicion spelled out in the rules of internal control,” he explains. At the same time, the main purpose of the bill is quite clear, the source continues, because the current rule of law does not govern the procedure for the refusal and the timing of the notice to the client, but only an indulgence for breaking the law, if the Bank discloses the reason for the refusal, he continues. According to him, the creation of “an exhaustive list of grounds for refusal” creates the conditions for the use of such a list of criminals in order to use the Bank for money laundering.Olga Cherenkova
