- Статьи
- Economy
- The payment is terrible: fines for banks for violating the law on advertising may increase
The payment is terrible: fines for banks for violating the law on advertising may increase
The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) has sent a letter to the Central Bank with proposals to introduce revolving fines for banks for violating advertising laws, the agency's press service told Izvestia. The discussion of this issue is in the final stages. Izvestia investigated how effective this measure would be and what other problems are observed in Russian banking.
Reasons for the changes
The FAS of Russia notes that over the past few years, the number of violations in the advertising of financial services has remained high, the press service of the federal agency told Izvestia. In 2024, they accounted for 14.23% of the total number of violations.
"The Service, together with the Bank of Russia, has developed recommendations on the placement of information on deposits in order to protect the rights of consumers of financial services. The agencies described practices that can be misleading regarding the terms of deposits, and also developed recommendations for posting information about them in mobile applications, personal accounts and other remote channels," the FAS press service said.
In addition, the FAS believes that the introduction of revolving fines, depending on the equity of financial organizations for inappropriate advertising, may be a proportionate measure that can reduce the number of such violations.
Currently, the discussion of this issue is in the final stages. The Agency has sent relevant proposals to the Bank of Russia.
The Central Bank confirmed to Izvestia the discussion of this initiative.
"At the same time, we draw attention to the fact that it is important that fines, on the one hand, do not become an excessive burden for small market participants, and on the other hand, they help prevent new violations," the regulator said.
The scale of violations
Alexey Voylukov, MBA Professor of business Practice in digital Finance at the Presidential Academy, noted that the number of violations of advertising legislation by banks is not so high, judging by the number of FAS orders issued to them last year.
— In total, about 1,900 orders were issued last year to eliminate violations of advertising legislation, but this applies to all legal entities in Russia, not just banks. The share of banks in these violations is insignificant. At the same time, the total amount of fines amounted to 160 million rubles. If you calculate the average fine for one order, it is about 84 thousand rubles," the expert said.
Of course, this amount can be either significant or not very significant for different organizations, but if you compare it with the current limits for legal entities (fines for violating advertising laws in the field of lending range from 100,000 to 500,000 rubles, and for banks — from 600,000 to 1.6 million rubles), then the average fine is it looks pretty small, says Voylukov.
— For banks, as far as I know, last year the average fine was about 300 thousand rubles. This is really not much, especially considering that the maximum fine now reaches 1.6 million rubles. In case of repeated violations or serious deviations from the norms, the FAS may apply more stringent sanctions. By the way, a year ago the maximum fine for banks was already doubled — from 800 thousand to 1.6 million rubles, — said Alexey Voylukov.
Degree of punishment
The current penalties for non-transparent terms of banking products in advertising are much less than the profits from such practices that banks receive, Vladimir Teterin, Senior Director of Banking Ratings at Expert RA, noted in an interview with Izvestia.
— Fines, the amount of which depends on the size of the capital, create a powerful incentive for banks and in the future could reduce the number of violations in advertising by an order of magnitude. At the same time, the effectiveness of these measures depends on the timeliness of their application and the strictness of monitoring compliance with legislative requirements, without which tightening may not give the expected result," he believes.
Given the high inflation and significant profits of the banking sector, it can be assumed that the current penalties do not always have a sufficient impact, Alexey Voylukov believes. Therefore, it is logical to consider the possibility of increasing the maximum fines. For example, the FAS previously proposed to increase fines for violations in advertising five times — from 1.6 million to 8 million rubles. According to Alexey Voylukov, this looks reasonable, especially if such a fine is applied for repeated violations or ignoring the regulations of the regulator. Considering the profits of banks, including those obtained through unfair advertising, such a measure can be effective.
"However, the introduction of revolving fines, especially in high amounts (for example, up to 1% of the capital), seems excessive for violations that are not always clearly malicious," he noted. — Advertising is a creative field, and it is impossible to prescribe all possible options in advance. Violations are often not related to direct disregard of the law, but to differences in interpretation or subjective assessments.
Nevertheless, given the profitability of the banking sector and cases where some players deliberately commit violations, knowing that the fines are not comparable to the potential benefits, adjusting the maximum penalties looks reasonable. The FAS's proposal to increase fines by five times (up to 8 million rubles) seems reasonable, but linking it to turnover or capital, especially in such high amounts, is probably unnecessary. Especially when you consider that there are few obvious and gross violations of advertising legislation, and most of them are promptly corrected by market participants.
The measure proposed by the FAS is at least encouraging for citizens, Vladimir Prokhorov, a member of the General Council of Delovaya Rossiya, told Izvestia.
— It is necessary to protect Russians from illegal actions on the part of financial structures. These organizations often disregard the principles of humanity. People should receive comprehensive information about the services provided to them, their cost and possible consequences. The initiative is aimed precisely at protecting the interests and financial security of citizens," he believes.
At the same time, there are still a number of problems in Russian banking that have yet to be solved, the expert recalled. For example, it is not uncommon to use complex or ambiguous expressions in small print to create a false impression of favorable terms. Also, complex formulations can be used in small print, which are difficult to understand without special training.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
