Bill on prompt information exchange between CBR, Russian Interior Ministry submitted to Russian govt

MOSCOW. June 3 (Interfax) - The Russian Finance Ministry has submitted to the Russian government a bill on prompt information exchange between the Bank of Russia and the Interior Ministry that will help more effectively solve crimes in the sphere of financial fraud with bankcards, according to materials on the Finance Ministry site.

"According to the bill, prompt exchange between the agencies will take place on the basis of bilateral agreements, which will determine the form and procedures governing interaction. Data exchange is expected to take place using the technological infrastructure of the Bank of Russia, and the automatic incident process system FinCERT," the report said.

The Interior Ministry will provide the Central Bank with data on actions associated with attempts to transfer money without clients' consent. The Bank of Russia, for its part, will provide to the Interior Ministry data contained in the database on attempts to conduct illegal transactions. This also concerns information on the entire chain of transactions, which will become the foundation for operational search activities.

The agency believes such types of fraud will lose their economic expediency, as the entire chain of accounts will be blocked in one criminal case. Therefore, the more cases are opened the more accounts will be blocked and the more difficult it will be to look for channels for withdrawing funds.

Banks currently respond to Interior Ministry inquiries regarding theft within 30 days, which creates problems with urgent operational search and procedural activities.

In September 2021, Artyom Sychev, who was then first deputy head of the Central Bank's information security department, said the percentage of stolen money returned to clients could increase considerably if the bill was adopted. The connection of the Interior Ministry to the Central Bank database will speed up the notification of lending organizations on persons whose accounts are used to withdraw stolen money, he said.

According to Central Bank data, the number of transactions conducted without clients' authorization in the first quarter of 2022 increased to 258,000, which is a 7.8% increase from the same period last year, their volume has increased by 12.8%, to 3.3 billion rubles. The share of returned funds has increased by more than one percent point, to 6.2%.

FinCERT is a center for monitoring and reaction to computer attacks in the credit and finance sphere, and is a special structural division of the Bank of Russia (CERT stands for computer emergency response team).