The National Bank is preparing restrictions on transfers between individuals – Pylyp Travkin

Limits for weekend P2P transfers can be 100,000 hryvnias and 30 transactions per month for one account.

It is indicated that the limits for weekend P2P transfers can be 100,000 hryvnias and 30 operations per month for one account.

The restriction will be based on the April decision of the National Security Council to combat the illegal gambling business. They intend to implement it within a month.

"According to our calculations, 95% of bank clients will not even notice these restrictions. At the same time, it will become more difficult and more expensive to make shadow payments to criminals who use personal cards for, for example, non-payment of taxes and criminal activities," said Deputy Chairman of the NBU Dmytro Oliynyk.

At the same time, the regulator does not plan to limit incoming transactions in order not to complicate the activities of, for example, volunteers. In addition, if there are reasons and confirmations, the limits can be increased, as an exception.

According to the National Bank, the volume of such shadow transfers can amount to billions of hryvnias. At the same time, cards are used for individuals who deliberately provide their personal data to criminals for this purpose. Then, using the cards of pensioners or students with a monthly income of several thousand hryvnias, they can carry out unusual payment transactions worth millions of hryvnias per day.

Since the fall of 2023, the NBU has recorded an abnormal increase in the volume of P2P transfers under the system, as well as an increase in the number of cards used for such transfers and the average transfer amounts to individual issuing banks.

In particular, one of the largest issuing banks submitted information to the NBU regarding detected drops (people who, for a fee, provide criminals/fraudsters with access to their bank details: to cards/accounts, including pin codes and access to Internet banking) – this is over 10,000 customers only in October-December 2023.

Another bank discovered more than 4,000 compromised cards during the same period.

Thus, according to the estimates of CASE Ukraine analysts, the state loses, roughly, at least 100 billion UAH per year due to VAT schemes, counterfeiting, the gray market of excise goods, wages "in envelopes", etc.

In the future, after the change in legislation, it is possible to create registers of cards that were used for such cards with similar operations.

Also, as part of countering shadow payments, the regulator plans to introduce requirements for financial companies regarding the presence of authorized capital, which will be tied to the percentage of transactions from the amount of payments.