At the end of May, the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) announced that it was preparing new restrictions on transfers between cards between individuals. This news shook Ukrainian society, provoking many discussions. At the same time, several aspects should be paid more attention to.
What is the importance of introducing new restrictions on bank transfers
The NBU expects that making it impossible to use card "drops" will be able to bring specific capital and businesses out of the shadow. For example, thanks to the supervisory actions of the NBU in 2022 — 2023, the volume of transactions on the websites of licensed gambling operators increased significantly.
As a result, the legal gambling business paid 10.4 billion hryvnias in taxes in the 12 months of 2023, more than 14 times the amount of taxes it paid in 2022 (0.73 billion hryvnias).
In February, March, and April 2024, tax revenues from the gambling business consistently exceeded 1 billion hryvnias (1.81 billion hryvnias, 2.02 billion hryvnias and 1.26 billion hryvnias, respectively).
According to the data from the official website of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, these are people who, for a reward, give criminals access to their bank cards and accounts.
Such means of payment are used as transit for transfers of various amounts between other accounts. Criminals need this in order to mislead victims, "confuse the tracks" and make it difficult for law enforcement officers to investigate crimes.
The NBU chief, Andrii Pyshnyi, announced that the central bank analysed the seven largest banks covering 91% of all card issuance. As a result, they believe that the working version of restrictions on 30 outgoing transfers from the card will not affect 98% of Ukrainians. At the same time, they see that the limit on the total amount of up to 100,000 per month will not affect 95% of Ukrainians.
Which sectors are most often recorded shadow schemes
The changes brought up for discussion will primarily affect the widespread practice of using P2P transfers for illegal financial transactions:
drug trade service;
illegal gambling business;
various shadow schemes.
The National Bank noticed it is not without any specific industry because the scheme works for legal businesses. Still, a large proportion of "drop" cards are found on the websites of illegal casinos.
