The State Duma obliged banks to return stolen funds to clients

The State Duma adopted the law in the second and third readings, which obliges banks to check all money transfers of individuals and to reimburse citizens the protected funds in full if they were transferred without the voluntary consent of the client.

The law must enter into force one hour after its official publication.

According to the adopted law, both the sending bank and the receiving bank will check the transfer. If fraud is suspected, the funds will be frozen for two days, and the client will be warned about it and asked to confirm the transaction.

At the same time, if the client insists on the transaction, but the bank has information that the money is being transferred to fraudsters, he must stop the transfer. If he does not do this, he must return the stolen funds within 30 days. In the case of a cross-border transfer – within 60 days. Now, according to the law, banks must return money only if it is stolen through no fault of the client.

If the client lost the bank card or it was used without his consent, the bank must return the funds provided that the client has notified of these facts. If the client did not warn the bank about the loss of control over the means of payment, then he may not reimburse the funds.

According to the Bank of Russia, in the first quarter of 2023, fraudsters were able to steal four and a half billion rubles from bank clients through unauthorized transfers. Credit organizations returned only slightly more than four percent of this amount to the victims, RBC reports.

In the Bank of Russia, such a low rate of return is explained by the high rate of social engineering, when citizens independently transfer funds to criminals or disclose bank details. In such cases, banks are not legally obliged to return the stolen money. In January-March 2023, the share of such methods of embezzlement by fraudsters exceeded 50%.