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- Waste of trust: bank employees were offered to be fired under the article for collusion with fraudsters
Waste of trust: bank employees were offered to be fired under the article for collusion with fraudsters
Bank employees suspected of collaborating with fraudsters will be fired "due to loss of trust." This proposal was put forward by the State Duma Committee on Financial Markets, Izvestia learned. The amendments will be submitted to the lower house of parliament in April, they will become part of the law "On Banks and Banking Activities." Earlier in the Russian Federation, it became possible to set a self-ban on taking out loans, but only 10% of the solvent population used the service. Meanwhile, according to the Central Bank, 40% of the money stolen by fraudsters is borrowed.
How to punish accomplices of fraudsters in banks
The State Duma Committee on the Financial Market proposes to allow banks to dismiss those employees who have been convicted of collaborating with fraudsters, with the wording "due to loss of trust." 81 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation ("Termination of the contract at the initiative of the employer") will part with such employees. Now such employees leave financial institutions by agreement of the parties.
Such amendments will be submitted to the State Duma in April, and they will be fixed in the law "On Banks and Banking Activities," Anatoly Aksakov, the head of the committee, told Izvestia. He clarified that the initiative was previously supported by the Central Bank. Izvestia sent a request to the regulator.
— Currently, labor legislation does not contain effective measures that make it possible to combat such cases of misconduct on the part of employees. The new measure will also remove the issue of further employment of the attacker in another bank. If a person is fired on the basis of an article, and not on their own, as is happening now, then the new employer will be able to soberly assess their risks. Plus, we propose in the future to create a database in the Russian Federation with information about such intruders, so that it would be easier for financial organizations to make decisions," the deputy said.
At the end of February, a law came into force in the Russian Federation that allowed people in Russia to set a self-ban on taking out loans. According to the Ministry of Finance, 8.2 million people used this option in Public Services, which is about 10% of the economically active population. There are 1.3 million residents in Moscow, 566,000 in St. Petersburg and another 446,000 in the Moscow region.
Moreover, on September 1, another anti-fraud law will come into force: on the cooling-off period for issuing consumer loans. According to this document, the loan can be received 48 hours after the application for receipt. In the meantime, as the head of the Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina, previously reported, 40% of all money received by fraudsters is credit.
What schemes are used to deceive victims?
In practice, there are a lot of scenarios used by scammers, but their essence is about the same, Evgenia Lazareva, head of the Popular Front for Borrowers' Rights project and coordinator of the Moshelovka platform, told Izvestia. Scammers put the victim in a state of acute stress, where she loses her vigilance and critical thinking. As a result, the attackers gain a kind of control over the person and manipulate them: people take on loans that they had not planned before, without their voluntary consent.
Moreover, such loans are often approved by the bank's employees, bypassing the scoring system, which evaluates the solvency and integrity of a potential borrower, she added. That is, in ordinary life, the victim might not approve the loan due to low income, but the "mole" in the bank easily coordinates all the necessary documents. In practice, people can call and say that someone is trying to take a loan in their name, which will scare the person, then to cancel the application, you need to apply for a new loan, and transfer the money received to an account named by fraudsters, the expert said.
— Despite all the seeming absurdity of the situation, people follow the instructions of the attackers and take on loans. Therefore, we agree that it is necessary to legislate disciplinary, administrative and criminal liability measures for those bank employees who cooperate with fraudsters. For example, they influence scoring procedures and manually approve loans to their victims, bypassing regulations and security procedures," Evgenia Lazareva added.
But so far, in reality, it is easier for banks to shift responsibility to the deceived client than to deal with the perpetrators, the expert noted. Especially outrageous are situations in which a person is denied a loan to buy a microwave oven, but just a week later the same bank approves a loan of 1 million rubles at an inflated rate, she said. According to Evgenia Lazareva, banks' security systems now allow them to quickly identify employees who violate internal security regulations. But an organization has no legitimate reason to dismiss an employee with a note in the workbook that could warn another organization that the specialist had previously collaborated with intruders.
Is it necessary to dismiss the guilty
The business community agrees that such regulation is necessary now, Alexander Abramov, head of the legal department of the Association of Banks, told Izvestia. Thus, the Labor Code does not consider some of these actions of employees as a gross violation of labor discipline, which means that it is impossible to terminate an employment contract with them.
— The grounds for dismissal due to loss of trust already exist, but they have a limited scope. In practice, this condition applies only to those persons with whom banks have concluded agreements on full financial liability," the expert noted. — Plus, judicial practice on this issue has already developed: it is possible to dismiss for such a reason if there is significant damage. Although in reality it may not occur or it may be difficult to calculate.
Therefore, the association supports the proposal of the State Duma Committee on Financial Markets: banks should be allowed to terminate employment contracts on their own initiative with an employee who cooperates with fraudsters. These are cases that lead to loss of property, damage to the bank's customers or the organization itself, as well as transactions with people's property without their voluntary consent.
Indeed, the current legislation partially allows you to terminate an employment contract with an employee in case of gross violation, Mirza Chiragov, head of digital law at Ligalpix, told Izvestia. But specifically in such cases, when a bank employee teams up with fraudsters, it becomes difficult to assess the degree of "rudeness" of this misconduct. Often, if a financial organization records such events for the first time, it is limited to a reprimand, but the appearance of a separate reason for dismissal is a positive innovation, he is sure.
An employee should be aware of the risks and consequences of their actions, especially one who performs such important financial actions, the expert added. However, it seems that it would be fair if one of two conditions were met in such situations. For example, it will be obvious that a person has committed intentional acts, in which case we can also talk about criminal prosecution, or we are talking about negligence, in which a bank employee could have checked and exercised due diligence, but did not do so, the lawyer said.
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