Starting February 1, Ukrainian banks will introduce new limits on card-to-card money transfers: what will change?

Starting tomorrow, Ukrainian banks will introduce new restrictions on money transfers, primarily for clients with unconfirmed income.

What limits will be set?

Since October, we have already the limit was 150 thousand hryvnias for P2P (card-to-card) money transfers for individuals, while from February 1, the restrictions will be extended to outgoing transfers using IBAN details in national and foreign currencies.

The amount of the new limit varies depending on whether a client with unconfirmed income belongs to a certain risk group (although it is not specifically explained how this indicator will be determined):

• UAH 50 thousand — for high-risk customers
• UAH 150 thousand — for medium and low risk customers (from June 1, the limit will be changed to UAH 100 thousand)

Additionally, a limit will be imposed on the number of accounts opened — no more than three in the same currency. At the same time, credit, deposit or accounts opened for payments under government programs will not be taken into account.

Who will not be subject to the restriction?

• for customers with verified income (salary customers and others)
• volunteers whose activities are documented
• for customers who transfer funds between two accounts opened in the same bank

Additional monitoring

Financial institutions will identify risk groups independently and according to their own criteria; and will monitor payment transactions around the clock, with special attention to transactions at night (from 24:00 to 06:00) to detect fraudulent schemes and unusual financial activities.

Banks will also analyze the activities of individual entrepreneurs:

• The activities of newly established sole proprietorships of the first group (those that were opened less than 6 months ago) have been deepened, with monitoring of account transactions according to the amount of average monthly income.
• Individual entrepreneurs of groups 2-3 on the general or simplified taxation system will be inspected according to their own risk-based criteria.

What should high-risk customers do if they exceed the limit?

If a customer plans to make a transaction that exceeds the established limit, he or she must provide documentary evidence of the origin of the funds — tax return; OK5 and OK7 certificates; a document confirming volunteer activities, etc.

Otherwise, after the transaction is made, the account is likely to be temporarily blocked.

Which banks will introduce restrictions?

The restrictions are envisaged by the Memorandum on Ensuring Transparency of the Payment Services Market, which was signed in December by some of Ukraine’s largest banks — to reduce the shadow economy and combat certain fraudulent schemes, including those known as «dropsWhen people give fraudsters access to their cards or accounts for questionable transactions in return for a reward.».

As of January 27, the Memorandum of Understanding 44 banks joined (including PrivatBank, PUMB, Universal Bank, and Oschadbank) and some payment systems (NovaPay, RozetkaPay, and others).

Source: RBC-Ukraine