The bank did not give a deposit what to do. Why keeping deposits in banks is not always safe

The recent shocking story of how the depositor of the Moscow Sberbank was refused to issue her multimillion-dollar deposit received a fairly wide response in the Russian press. Having studied the problem in detail from all sides, including many similar stories from bank clients, repeatedly described on the Russian Internet, as well as explanations of specialists from the Bank of Russia, the Association of Russian Banks (ARB), the Federal Financial Monitoring Service, interpretation of laws by well-known Moscow lawyers, our portal invites you to familiarize yourself with the conclusions following from the analysis of this rather diverse material.

Should we believe everything that they write on the Internet?

An active surge of emotions was noted on different information resources at about the same time. Moreover, all the recent stories about the violation of the rights of depositors to freely dispose of their funds are very similar to each other. For example, by the fact that they are united by the same bank. It can be noted that a very picturesque story of one offended investor, initially posted on her page on a social network, was then repeatedly retold and supplemented with new expressive details by other people. However, the specialists of the ARB and the Central Bank, working with real complaints from citizens who come to them, claim that they do not observe mass incidents unfavorable for the owners of bank accounts. Financiers suggest thinking about how much you can trust all Internet stories from strangers? Will this be an impartial presentation of all the details of the conflict?

In addition, the current exacerbation took place against the background of a difficult situation for the domestic economy - in fact, during a period of decline in the rate at which banks attract new funds to their funds. Perhaps that is why the summary made by the contributors from the described event looks more like (according to the classification of experts from the ARB) to "panic speculation" with which it is so easy to intimidate the average Russian, especially in times of crisis. That is, the bankers themselves deny the conclusions of some citizens that the branches of credit institutions (especially state banks that have come under Western sanctions) deliberately do not issue large sums of money, in every possible way delaying the moment when they still have to satisfy the client's legitimate desire to take personal money from the bank.

Anti-money laundering law

But what, then, is the real reason for the problems of depositors whose rights are being infringed upon in such a harsh way? After all, similar negative reviews have been encountered before in life and on the Internet. Here, as they say, "the devil is in the details." Having carefully studied the complaints of citizens, we can say that each of them has its own story. However, they are all united by the bank's request for additional documents with reference to Law No. 115-FZ "On Counteracting Legalization of Criminally Acquired Incomes ...". Rosfinmonitoring and its agent, the Bank of Russia, monitor the strict observance of this standard by financial institutions (not only banks). By the way, one of the reasons for the revocation of a banking license by the Central Bank is the improper execution of the anti-legalization Law by the financial institute. That is why banks are so afraid of accusations of their own involvement in the dubious activities of their clients.

Moreover, most of the owners of bank capital who receive oral and written requests from the bank, of course, are not criminals or corrupt officials with illegal income. The bank is well aware that only a court can make an unequivocal conclusion about guilt. To refute its suspicions of a high degree of risk for the client, the financial organization first examines some of its operations, including through documents provided by the consumer himself. The documents must confirm the existence of economic sense in the client's activities. If we talk about what the economic meaning of a private investor's activity is, then it is extremely transparent for those who have nothing to hide - placing funds on accounts for their savings or accumulation. Money can be received as a salary or other legal income of an individual, such as dividends from entrepreneurial activities, rental payments from the delivery of personal property, sale of large movable and immovable property, transfer of the deposit amount from one bank to another, etc.

The indicated sources of income can be simply confirmed with documents, for example, by a purchase and sale agreement, a 2NDFL, 3NDFL certificate, other agreements and certificates. Of course, the client can refuse the bank to provide his confidential documents, because the 115-FZ norm does not oblige citizens to anything, and the responsibility for failure to comply with this particular Law lies only with financial organizations. But in practice, it turns out that it is in the interests of account users to compromise and satisfy the banks' curiosity if it is caused by the implementation of the Anti-Money Laundering Law.

We can recall examples of banking business abroad, where, in the fight against criminal proceeds, the law-abidingness of depositors is even more strictly checked. For those who know that sometimes they ask for an incredible amount of the most incredible documents, collecting a whole evidence base. True, a feature of Western practice is a more thorough check of a potential client "at the entrance", and not at the time of withdrawing money from the account. However, an official request for a confirmed source of legal income unites both Russian and foreign reality.

Contradictions in legislation

As for the above example with a Moscow depositor, then, in her words, the bank asked for somewhat different documents confirming the further spending of the funds that she tried to withdraw in cash. In this case, the amount was calculated with six zeros. By the way, it is quite possible that the case ended in the fact that the money belonging to the Muscovite was transferred by bank transfer back to the account from which it was received earlier from another credit institution. In any case, in such situations the bank does not leave “doubtful” money for a long time, trying to get rid of their problem owners forever.

Let's try to figure it out. We found some explanations in an interview with representatives of the Bank of Russia and Rosfinmonitoring.

Law 115-FZ gives credit institutions the right to request any supporting documents from clients if they have doubts about the economic sense of the account holder's activities. The purpose of the question can be both a source of income and the targeting of the further use of money. The amount of questionable transactions is not specified by the Law. And the lower limit is 600,000 rubles. concerns only mandatory control, which is not the same thing as control of suspicious activities. But it is precisely regular transactions (i.e., not one-time receipts and expenses on the account), the total amount of which will be considered large, under certain circumstances may already be called suspicious. Some of these circumstances: an unknown source of income for the bank, the meaning of the client's activities, incomprehensible for the bank, its ultimate goal, points of contact with other persons noticed in dubious transactions.

Since the middle of last year, amendments have been made to Federal Law No. 115, according to which the bank is already legally obliged (and not just has the right) to refuse the client to carry out transactions or close his account on its own initiative, or refuse to open a new account, but if "Iron" evidence of their innocence. However, it is still against the law under any circumstances to reject an individual's request to release his deposit immediately. This is directly stated by the Civil Code and other standards.

Among other unpleasant consequences that credit institutions use against their most dubious consumers is the compilation of unofficial black lists. Once on such a list, a person (both physical and legal) will be in every possible way prevented from continuing any relationship with the bank. Moreover, if now "stop lists" are kept behind the scenes within each bank, then Rosfinmonitoring has recently prepared a bill, if adopted, banks will be given the "green light" to exchange lists among themselves quite openly and legitimately.

Another confirmation of the legal grounds for requesting additional documents from the depositor is the conditions for interaction with the consumer, determined by the Rules for using an account / deposit (as an Application, inseparable from the contract) in any modern bank. Conditions, by the way, under which the client puts his signature, agreeing to their execution. For example, the Rules for banking services for individuals of Sberbank of Russia have the following points:

"The Bank has the right to suspend operations on the account in whole or in part, as well as to refuse to perform operations, with the exception of operations for crediting funds ... including if the Bank suspects that the operation is being performed for the purpose of legalizing (laundering) proceeds from crime" ,
"The Bank undertakes ... to return, upon the first request of the Client, the funds deposited into the deposit together with the interest accrued in accordance with the terms of the Deposit Agreement."

But on the other hand, the judicial practice of challenging the actions of banks, in cases where credit organizations refer to their execution of 115-FZ, leaves priority to citizens. The bank's arguments are often recognized as unfounded, in accordance with Article 845 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. The final court opinion may contain the following wording: "the bank does not have the right to determine and control the directions of using the client's funds and establish other restrictions not provided for by law or the bank account agreement on his right to dispose of funds at its own discretion." True, it must be understood that each case of a case in court is purely individual, the evidence base and details of the dispute may be different, as well as the conclusion of the judge.

Step-by-step instruction

In case of trouble with the bank, we advise you to heed the following recommendations. So, what to do if the bank does not give the deposit:

Firstly, if the bank makes requests for supporting documents even during the validity of the account / deposit agreement, then it is in your interests to fulfill such requests, especially if your sources of income are transparent, and subsequent actions with money are not dubious;
Secondly, in spite of the depositor's right to withdraw his money as prescribed in the Civil Code, at the very first request, at the moment of your arrival the required amount may simply not be in the cash register. Therefore, when receiving a very large deposit, amounting to millions, it is still recommended to notify the bank of your intentions at least one day in advance, having previously learned whether additional documents will be required;
Thirdly, if your goal is to get a deposit immediately, then a well-written written claim on the day of refusal, as well as oral negotiations with the bank management, can quickly sober overly zealous controllers. By the way, the bank will never confirm its refusal on paper;
Fourthly, in case of refusal (even illegal) to issue a deposit in cash, force the bank, for example, to accept your payment order for a wire transfer of funds to another bank. By the way, if you need money to buy expensive property (a car, an apartment), then your seller-recipient of funds may well agree to accept a non-cash transfer to their details.

For more information on how to effectively deal with the injustice of bankers and what other rights of depositors are most often violated by credit institutions, see our section "Advice for depositors".

Oksana Lukyanets, expert at Vkladvbank.ru

Legal advice:

1. All banks have licenses from the Bank of Russia for deposits, but it is not written there for the issuance of loans, so can they be given loans?

1.1. The website of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation has all the information you are interested in: the validity of the bank's license, lending to individuals and legal entities, etc.