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Will Russia be blacklisted for money laundering: In this case, all bank transfers will be cut off for us
Next week, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) plans to consider adding Russia to its blacklist, the European publication Politico reported, citing confidential sources. It is reported that Ukraine made the announcement. And it includes a list of our “sins,” including friendship with Iran and North Korea, as well as the use of Telegram and cryptocurrency.
It is noteworthy that FATF has recognized Russia as one of the leading countries in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing for many years. In this regard, our laws are among the strictest in the world. As the saying goes, ask a banker about Federal Law No. 115 (“Combating the legalization (laundering) of proceeds from crime and the financing of terrorism”) and see how he gets to the validol. Nevertheless, due to geopolitical pressure, Korea was excluded from FATF in February last year. Although no additional sanctions were introduced.
In essence, this is a black mark for financial institutions around the world. Bank transfers to/from countries included in the “black list” are prohibited. This applies to both businesses and ordinary citizens. This means that export/import under these conditions is almost impossible. The same applies to sending money for personal purposes. The country must find a solution. Currently, North Korea, Iran and Myanmar are on the FATF black list.
Overall, Russia is still in a rather difficult situation. Many large banks have lost their connection to the international payment system SWIFT. Coordinating transfers of funds takes a long time, since counterparties in other countries are afraid of secondary sanctions from the US and the EU. But this is more of a grey list. At the moment, there are 21 countries. Many of them are African. However, there are also very prosperous countries, such as Croatia, Bulgaria, Vietnam, the Philippines and even Monaco. Cooperation with these countries is not prohibited, but there is a requirement to carefully check transfers to ensure that they are never used for money laundering or terrorist financing.
- In fact, we are already on this "gray list." Investment banker Evgeny Kogan said that all payments coming and going from Russia are treated with great suspicion and everything is studied under a microscope.
In other words, it is unlikely that adding Russia to the grey list will lead to any fundamental changes. And most experts believe that it is unlikely that you will be blacklisted straight away. First of all, a downgrade would require approval from all 55 FATF member countries. Among them are many partners, including China, India, Turkey and South Africa. Secondly, it would require a more compelling reason than the current use of Telegram and cryptocurrency around the world. Moreover, in the last few years, we have been monitoring money laundering much more strictly than before.
- The Russian anti-money laundering system complies with international standards. This was confirmed by the FATF assessment in 2019 and the assessment conducted by international experts last year. Russia's rating on three FATF recommendations was upgraded, and only one was downgraded to "partially compliant" due to insufficient legislative regulation in the area of virtual currency distribution. In addition, since then, Russia has already adopted two federal laws regulating the circulation of digital currencies, the press service of Rosfinmonitoring explained to KP.
They made it clear that the basis for inclusion in the FATF "black list" was strategic shortcomings in the system for combating money laundering. International experts did not confirm this.