NBU wants to introduce restrictions on card transfers of individuals

The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) wants to introduce restrictions on card transfers of individuals.

This is stated in the message of the NBU, Ukrainian News Agency reports.

The NBU records a significant spread of a dangerous trend in the financial market - the use of bank accounts of individuals as "transit" for the transfer and "laundering" of illegal funds.

These are tens of thousands of accounts that can be used to disguise illegal activities as ordinary transactions of individuals.

Such schemes are currently becoming an acute problem at the state level due to the possibility of tax evasion during the war, the organization of financing of information companies and sabotage by the russian federation, conducting illegal economic activities, etc.

The National Bank considers it absolutely necessary to take regulatory measures in the near future for the impossibility of using illegal schemes with bank cards, in particular, in the part of P2P transfers.

"Drops" are people who, for a certain fee, transfer access to the details of their bank accounts to third parties.

Money obtained as a result of cybercrimes or from the trade in drugs, weapons or other "shadow" transactions is transferred through "drop" accounts.

Through "drop" cards, hundreds of P2P transfers are made in a short period of time for amounts that do not match the declared income received by the client (for example, a pensioner receives and transfers hundreds of thousands of hryvnias through his account in a few days).

A typical portrait of a "drop" is representatives of socially vulnerable population groups, pensioners, students with a low or average level of income on accounts.

Some of them give their details knowingly, some act under the influence of social engineering, agreeing to tempting easy earnings.

According to data received by the NBU from market participants, the amount and number of instant transfer (P2P) transactions shows a steady upward trend from September 2023 in all groups of banks, regardless of the volume of card business.

Last year, the volume of P2P transfers using cards began to grow: from 210 billion in January to 247 billion in December 2023.

This growth exceeds the volume of purchases and receiving cash using payment cards.

This indicates a certain anomaly in this segment of payment operations.

The National Bank is currently finalizing the draft decision, which provides for certain limits exclusively for outgoing card-to-card transactions.

The decision applies exclusively to P2P transfers.

Operations using IBAN details are available without restrictions.

Currently, the option of limits is being discussed - no more than 30 transactions and up to UAH 100,000 per month for one account (usually people have several accounts). But the final version of the decision will be adopted in about a month after careful discussion.

The NBU conducted a study of customer transactions of the 7 largest transaction banks (more than 91% of all issued cards) for the 2nd quarter of 2024, based on which it was determined that the limit of 30 transactions per month will not be felt by 98.44% of bank customers.

The amount limit will not affect 95% of customers.

Clients who have official incomes greater than the declared amount and need to carry out a larger number of transactions can contact their bank and provide documentary evidence of the sources of funds and justification of the transaction.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, from July 21, 2022, the National Bank reduced the monthly limit for citizens' transfers abroad from hryvnia payment cards of Ukrainian banks from UAH 100,000 to UAH 30,000.