31 Mar 2025 11:55

Suspicious transactions fall 21% in 2024 to 90 bln rubles - Central Bank of Russia

MOSCOW. March 31 (Interfax) - Suspicious transactions amounted to 90 billion rubles in 2024, down 21% compared to the previous year's figure of 113 billion rubles, according to the Central Bank's report on its work last year.

Cash withdrawals in the trade and retail and tourism sectors decreased 13% to 20 billion rubles. Suspicious transactions related to enforcement documents fell more than 66% to 1.2 billion rubles.

Dropper operations in the banking sector decreased 66% in December last year compared to the average monthly figure for 2023. The average lifespan of a dropper card shortened from 2 months in 2023 to days and in some cases to minutes by the end of 2024, the Central Bank said.

Cash withdrawals using corporate and individual entrepreneur (IE) payment cards more than halved to 7 billion rubles thanks to the Central Bank's Know Your Customer platform.

The platform has been fully operational since July 1, 2022. As part of this service, the Central Bank assigns one of three risk levels (low, medium or high) to Russian legal entities and IEs and then informs credit institutions about how risky a particular client's activities are from the standpoint of anti-money laundering legislation. The platform's information is supplementary for banks; they must independently make the final assessment of their clients' businesses.

At the end of 2024, out of nearly 8 million Russian legal entities and IEs, 96.9% were classified as low-risk, 1.9% as medium-risk and 1.2% as high-risk, the Central Bank said.