Central Bank will not take measures against banks working with companies whose websites are prohibited in Russia until end of 2024
MOSCOW. Jan 12 (Interfax) - The Bank of Russia has extended the grace period through the end of 2024 for banks who violate the ban on providing services to organizations whose websites are included in the Unified Register of Internet Resources Prohibited in the Russian Federation.
According to current anti-money-laundering legislation (115-FZ), banks are prohibited from conducting operations on behalf of entities whose websites are included in the Roskomnadzor register. The requirement came into force in the summer of 2021. However, in November 2021 the Central Bank postponed punitive measures against banks for violating it until April 2022. Then the regulator extended the measure two additional times, first through the end of 2022, and again until the end of 2023. In December 2023, the National Financial Market Council (NFMC) requested an additional extension from the Central Bank.
The request came as a result of the fact that banks and non-credit financial institutions do not have automatic access to the register of Internet resources prohibited in Russia in order to fulfill this requirement, the NFMC said. Now, only telecom operators have automatic access. Other users (including legal entities and individual entrepreneurs) may gain access upon requesting a specific domain name using a form on the registry website, in effect, "manually," which "does not allow for the proper verification of information in the Unified Register as part of the standard business processes of financial organizations without causing a total critical slowdown."
In November, the State Duma postponed reconsideration until its spring session for the second reading of a bill (N158779-8) which would allow automated access to the register of Internet resources prohibited in Russia for organizations conducting transactions with funds or other property. "This provision is intended to make it easier for credit institutions to use the law; today they really are in a stalemate. When a particular resource is in the Roskomnadzor register, they are formally obliged to block any operations related to this resource. These could be large Russian search engines such as Yandex . Therefore, in order not to paralyze the activities of these organizations, this small clarification is being made," Ilya Yasinsky, director of the Central Bank's department of financial monitoring and currency control said.