Ukrainian banks signed the Memorandum on ensuring the transparency of the functioning of the payment services market. Andriy Pishnyi, chairman of the board of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), explained what this could mean for clients.
Ukrainian banks signed the Memorandum on ensuring the transparency of the functioning of the payment services market. Andriy Pishnyi, chairman of the board of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), explained what this could mean for clients.
On December 10, the Memorandum was signed by JSC Oschadbank, JSC CB PrivatBank, JSC Raiffeisen Bank, JSC Universal Bank (monobank), as well as two banking associations: the Independent Association of Banks of Ukraine (NABU) and the Association of Ukrainian Banks (AUB). .
According to Pyshnyi, the memorandum does not strengthen financial monitoring and evaluation of the client in banks .
«Banks used a risk-based approach to assessing clients and, accordingly, decisions about their service, and still use it,» noted the head of the NBU board, adding that this, on the contrary, could be a step towards the early removal of the temporary limit on outgoing P2P transfers, which had been introduced in October for half a year.
The memorandum also does not introduce additional restrictions for clients. Nothing will change for clients who will receive a «white» salary or can document their income.
«The limits specified in the memorandum apply EXCLUSIVELY to clients who have not provided documentary evidence of their income, especially those identified as „high-risk“. Basically, they don’t have any documents! The latter, according to banks, are no more than 1% of the entire client base. Yes, only 1%, but they are actively involved in the network of „drops“ and are the basis of this billion-dollar „drop“ traffic,» Pyshnyi explained.
According to the memorandum, if there is no documented income, the banks undertake to set limits (which will apply to transfers using IBAN details) for operations:
Pyshny also assured that the memorandum will not affect the work of volunteers, and now clients do not need to update their income data.
The chairman of the board of the NBU emphasized that the memorandum will help reduce financing of the shadow economy .
«The banks' initiative is nothing more than streamlining all the processes and approaches that already exist to prevent the payment infrastructure from being used to finance illegal activities. Today, this is also tax evasion, which is measured in billions of hryvnias that move past the state budget. This is the financing of terrorist and subversive activities, when Russia pays for arson and explosions in our cities through „drop centers“. This is, in general, the maintenance of the shadow economy, which deprives Ukraine of a huge resource needed for the country’s defense,» Pyshnyi added.
