Seven large banks are preparing to sign a memorandum among themselves on strengthening the limits of card transfers to UAH 100,000 per month from one account, and for risky clients to UAH 50,000 per month.
Seven large banks are preparing to sign a memorandum among themselves on strengthening the limits of card transfers to UAH 100,000 per month from one account, and for risky clients to UAH 50,000 per month.
As Forbes writes with reference to the banks' memorandum, the option offered by the banks, unlike the limit on card accounts implemented by the NBU earlier, applies to all types of transfers, including IBAN, and has a lower limit on transactions.
Banks also plan to strengthen financial monitoring of FOPs in order to combat drops. The memorandum should be signed by at least seven banks — Oschadbank, OTP Bank, PrivatBank, Pravex Bank, PUIB, Raiffeisen Bank, and Universal Bank.
The new restrictions will come into effect as early as January 205 for both foreign and local transfers.
From January 1, 2025, it is planned to set the limit to UAH 150,000 per month, and from June 1, 2025 — to UAH 100,000 per month.
In order to increase it, the client must provide documentary evidence of a higher level of income, within which a new limit will be established, the memorandum states.
IBAN operations, which customers switched to after the introduction of limits on p2p transfers, also fall under the restrictions.
Another limitation that banks want to introduce is the number of accounts in the same currency. A client who does not have documentary proof of funds can have a maximum of three accounts.
In addition to restrictions, banks also offer to expand their access to information about the client’s income, court cases, etc. through «Dia». Also create a register of doubtful customers who have a tendency to «drops».
The memorandum contains both NBU recommendations and new risk indicators that are recommended to be used by banks to check FOPs. Among them is a sharp increase in transactions on the account, a balance of «0» at the beginning and end of the day, the splitting of transfers, in particular in round amounts, the memorandum notes.
Previously, the National Bank of Ukraine provided banks with recommendations on checking FOPs under the «business fragmentation» scheme on the following grounds:
The largest inspections will concern FOPs of the I group, which have been registered for less than six months. Banks will introduce enhanced financial monitoring for them. For FOPs of II and III groups, checks will not be so strict, each bank will apply its own risk-oriented approach.
Under the terms of the memorandum, information on violations will be exchanged between banks and the State Financial Monitoring Service, the Ministry of Justice, and the State Tax Service.
Previously, the NBU recommended that banks send to FOPs a request for documents that can confirm risky transactions. If the answers are not satisfactory, close the account and transfer the information to the State Financial Monitoring Service, the NBU interlocutor explained the logic of the checks. «The bank collects these cases, analyzes them, then hands them over to law enforcement agencies,» he added.
The memorandum also talks about the introduction of automatic verification of clients' incomes with centralized databases of state bodies and data exchange between the banks that signed the memorandum.
It will be recalled that earlier, several participants of the banking market informed the Interfax-Ukraine agency that as early as next week they can sign a joint memorandum on the introduction of unified approaches to due diligence of clients and monitoring of financial transactions on their accounts.
From October 1, 2024, the NBU set a limit of UAH 150,000 per month for card-to-card (P2P, person-to-person) transfers by individuals. However, transactions using IBAN details are not yet limited.
At the same time, according to the NBU, 98% of bank clients make monthly transfers that do not exceed the specified amount.
In addition, since September 10, the NBU introduced limits on the use of currency cards abroad: which goods are subject to a limit of UAH 100,000.
