Secret filter: a unified anti-dropping system is being created
The creation of a unified payment card accounting system will become a new stage in the fight against droppery, shifting the focus from detecting individual suspicious transactions to centralized control of the entire card infrastructure. Starting from September 1, Russia will launch a unified payment card accounting system designed to counteract droppage. Information about all bank cards, including Visa and Mastercard cards, will be entered into the database. What this means for the financial sector and the majority of clients is described in the Izvestia article.
Fight against droppery
The dropper helps fraudsters to conduct illegal transactions through their bank cards or accounts. He can accept other people's money, withdraw it, transfer it further, or transfer access to his banking data. Most often, they are involved in dropping for the sake of quick earnings: scammers search for people through social networks and messengers, offer simple tasks for money, and then use their cards to transfer and cash out funds received from deceived citizens.
Participation in such schemes can lead to serious problems. Criminal liability is provided for the transfer of a card, banking details, or assistance in withdrawing money — fines, forced labor, or imprisonment are possible. In addition, the dropper may be required to return the stolen funds through the court, and the bank may block the account due to suspicious transactions.
In 2025, the Central Bank identified 1.2 million droppers. At the same time, every month the regulator finds about 100 thousand accounts associated with such participants in the schemes. The scale of the problem has forced the authorities to strengthen control: since June 2025, droppery has been criminalized with a possible penalty of up to six years in prison. Banks are also strengthening customer protection: starting in 2024, they have been checking suspicious transfers, and in 2024 they blocked more than 700,000 dropper accounts. Every month, credit institutions suspend about 300,000 questionable transactions.
The new anti-droppage system is related to changes in the law on the national payment system. Holders of more than 20 cards will be able to choose which ones to keep in advance. After reaching the limit, it will be impossible to open a new card at any bank. At the same time, there will be no automatic closing of cards — existing accounts will continue to work. The limit on the number of cards will become effective only from September 1, 2027 and will affect the issuance of new cards.
It is expected that the new system will become an additional risk management tool for the banking sector, as financial organizations will be able to exchange data with the regulator faster and reduce the number of accounts used by fraudsters. For the cashless payments market, this will increase the transparency of transactions and customer confidence in the banking infrastructure.
Similar experience of centralized accounting of payment cards exists in other countries, for example, in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, the press service of the Central Bank reminded Izvestia.
"We believe that setting a limit on card issuance, along with current measures, will increase the effectiveness of the fight against droppage, as well as make the activities of intruders even more economically unprofitable," the regulator noted.
In recent years, the Bank of Russia, together with banks and law enforcement agencies, has built a system to counteract fraud based on a database of fraudulent transactions, which is formed according to victims' statements and contains information about suspicious transfers and their recipients.
Banks use this information to strengthen anti-fraud controls: according to the Interior Ministry, they are required to block cards and remote banking services, and in other cases may impose restrictions on cash transfers and withdrawals of up to 100,000 rubles per month. In addition, new cards and online banking are not issued to customers from the database, and incoming transfers (with the exception of salaries and social benefits) are delayed by two days.
A global problem
In Europe, the fight against droppage is based on the joint work of banks, law enforcement agencies and international structures. EMMA (European Money Mule Action) operations, which are conducted with the participation of Europol, Eurojust and the banking sector, have become one of the key instruments. They help identify the account holders through which illegal transfers take place, find the organizers of the schemes, and detain them. European countries are also actively launching information campaigns to warn citizens about the risks of transferring cards and bank data to third parties.
Banks in Europe are actively using artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyze transactions and search for suspicious transfer chains. An additional limitation was the reduction of the allowable limit of cash payments to €10,000 at the EU level, which makes it more difficult to use cash to legalize illegal income.
In China, the fight against financial fraud is regulated by a special law on combating telecommunications and Internet crimes. The authorities use a system of restrictions for people who participate in such schemes: for example, violators may be included in special blacklists, after which they are restricted access to financial services. Such citizens may lose the opportunity to open new accounts, use online banking, apply for loans and register in digital services based on their data. Chinese authorities also monitor the travel of people connected to fraudulent networks and the activities of foreign call centers.
The government is also developing mobile applications to protect citizens from fraudsters: services warn users about suspicious calls, messages and attempts to transfer money. All SIM cards, bank accounts, and payment services, including WeChat Pay and Alipay, are linked to the owner's verified identity and biometric data. Such a system reduces the possibilities for anonymous use of accounts and complicates the work of dropper networks.
Russian banks use advanced protection technologies, and the new system will help to identify abuses faster, Maxim Chirkov, associate professor at the Faculty of Public Administration at Moscow State University, told Izvestia. In particular, graph models and transaction analysis systems are used. So, graphs help to find connections between accounts, devices and participants in schemes, and behavioral anti-fraud detects suspicious transactions in real time.
Banks also work with the FinCERT database of the Bank of Russia, where data on compromised banking details is stored. The exchange of information between financial institutions helps to identify dropper accounts faster and block illegal transfers.
It is impossible to completely eliminate fraudulent schemes, but strengthening the control and interaction of banks with law enforcement agencies will reduce their number and increase confidence in the financial system.
Izvestia sent a request to the Ministry of Finance, but no response had been received at the time of publication.
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