The government’s legislative commission has approved a bill allowing Russians to voluntarily prohibit banks from lending to them. This is done to protect citizens from identity fraud. reported vedomosti.
The related bill was submitted for consideration in April 2023 by a group of deputies headed by Anatoly Aksakov, head of the State Duma’s financial market committee.
The purpose of the bill is to prevent cases of fraud with the personal data of Russians. The citizen will be able to apply and enforce a ban on obtaining loans from banks and microfinance institutions (MFI) for a certain period at his discretion.
According to Aksakov, this will reduce the risk of fraud with personal data, since in 2022 15 billion rubles were stolen from Russian accounts, part of which the attackers gave as loans.
Experts believe that such a measure can really significantly complicate the actions of scammers. According to Positive Technologies, one in four cyberattacks against Russians in the second quarter of 2023 resulted in their personal data being stolen.
According to Yury Fedyukin, managing partner of Enterprise Legal Solutions, the voluntary ban on loans will make it harder for schemes to steal money from debit cards to spread. But scammers will look for loopholes, so it is important to improve the financial literacy of citizens and explain the benefits of such a measure.
At the beginning of December 2022, a similar initiative was voiced by the Central Bank. Mikhail Mamuta, Head of the Central Bank’s Consumer Protection Department suggested Russians will forbid lending to themselves on their credit history. Then banks and MFIs will have to check history before issuing loans and will not be able to print money if prohibited.
Previously, the Central Bank of the Russian Federation harshly raised up to 12% key rate in an unscheduled meeting.