Trust limit: the State Duma is ready to ease restrictions on issuing bank cards
The authorities are ready to expand the limit of cards per person from five to 10 in one bank. The bill with this provision is planned to be adopted in an accelerated manner — in the next two weeks. The document also implies a strict restriction: no more than 20 cards in total in all credit institutions. Market participants consider this measure excessive and suggest using intrabank limits in order not to infringe on the interests of bona fide customers. Whether the new rules will deal a serious blow to fraudulent "drop farms" is in the Izvestia article.
How will the intrabank limits on the number of cards change?
The discussed limit on the number of bank cards for one person is likely to be increased, Anatoly Aksakov, head of the State Duma Committee on the Financial Market, told Izvestia. The maximum number of "plastic" in one bank is planned to be expanded from five to 10.
This position is shared by the financial authorities. The head of the Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina, previously noted that the regulator could meet the market halfway.
— We were now ready, under the influence of the discussion that is taking place, to look at an option so that the limit in one bank is about 10 cards. It is important that conscientious citizens do not fall under this restriction," said Elvira Nabiullina.
It is planned to consider the bill in the second and third readings in late February and early March, and the procedure will not be delayed. The exact date of entry into force of the regulations has not yet been determined: full-fledged control will require the creation of a Unified Payment Card Accounting System. However, the limits are expected to start working no later than the first quarter of 2027.
If, with a limit of five cards, an active customer of one bank would quickly reach it, then now they will have more opportunities.
"Salary, debit, credit, virtual card for online payments, installment card, children's card and other products will be able to safely coexist in one bank," explained Oleg Abelev, head of the analytical department at the Rikom—Trust investment company.
Why are banks against the general threshold of 20 cards
Market participants propose to set a limit on the issue of "plastic" for individuals at the level of no more than 10 cards of each type in one bank, follows from the table of amendments to the package of draft laws "Antifraud 2", which the National Council of the Financial Market (NSFR) sent to the head of the State Duma Committee on Financial Markets Anatoly Aksakov. This approach will not affect the interests of bona fide customers who may use different types of cards — not only debit, but also credit and bonus.
The currently proposed limit of five cards in one bank and 20 in total is excessive, the banking community is confident. Fraudulent schemes mainly used a large number of cards in one organization at once — this practice can easily be stopped by introducing an intrabank limit without general control.
The NSFR clarified that such a threshold can be implemented quickly without large-scale improvements to IT systems. And interbank control will require the creation of a Unified Payment Card Accounting System. However, the developers of the bill did not estimate the costs of its creation and use, nor did they indicate the sources of funding for launching such a mechanism.
At the same time, strict restrictions may affect a significant proportion of bank customers, the NSFR noted. According to the portal Mail.ru 17.3% of Russians (25 million) have more than five bank cards, and 6.3% (9 million people) have more than 10 cards.
At the same time, in practice, many banks have long applied similar restrictions on their own initiative, said Vitaly Kostyukevich, a representative of Absolut Bank. As a rule, the limits in such cases are even stricter than those proposed by the authorities.
Will the new law help stop fraudsters?
More importantly, the restriction severely affects the efficiency of droppers. These are people through whose accounts the attackers spend money for cashing out. The problem here is precisely at the interbank level, explained Dmitry Sytsko, Director of Information Technology at BCS Bank. Fraudsters distribute cards to different credit institutions in order not to attract the attention of monitoring systems. If the restriction applies only to one market player, the droppers will simply open several cards in each bank and continue working.
— The limit of 20 pieces in total is the very red line that will really complicate the lives of criminals, — Dmitry Sytsko emphasized.
At the same time, the launch of a Unified Payment Card Accounting System may turn out to be a technically and financially difficult project, said Vasily Kutyin, Ingo Bank's Director of Analytics. Such a system must work in real time, process large amounts of data and be constantly updated, which requires serious investments.
The idea of abandoning the interbank limit and not creating a single database has both advantages and disadvantages, says Denis Ushakov, a presale engineer at Speakatel. On the one hand, it speeds up the implementation of restrictions. On the other hand, without a common base, it is impossible to see the full picture, which means that the effectiveness of dealing with drops is reduced.
The limit on the number of cards in banks is just one of the measures.
The introduction of a limit on the number of cards will greatly complicate the work of fraudsters, says Ivan Goryachev, manager of the Servicepipe educational project.
First of all, the so-called drop farms will be affected — organized groups where dozens of cards were issued to front persons for mass operations, explains Denis Ushakov. Now, for the same volumes, attackers will have to attract more people, which increases the risks and increases the costs.
At the same time, the limit on the number of cards in banks is only one of the measures proposed as part of the Anti—Fraud 2 package of bills. The authorities also want to limit the maximum number of phone numbers for Russians, introduce mandatory labeling of foreign numbers, and ensure data exchange between telecom operators, banks, and government agencies through the state information system (GIS) "Antifraud." Dina Fomicheva, Director of the Corporate Sales Department at the Telecom Exchange, is confident that the damage caused by these measures should be enormous.
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