Everything is connected: banks force Russians to subscribe to ads
Banks are forcing Russians to consent to advertising when making cards and accounts, Izvestia found out. Sometimes you can opt out of mailing lists only with the product. Clients of Rosselkhoznadzor, VTB, Alfa-Bank and Gazprombank have experienced such cases. The Central Bank and the Federal Antimonopoly Service consider this practice unacceptable, and court decisions against credit institutions have also appeared. How common such cases are and how dangerous they are for customers is in our material.
How banks impose advertising consents
Russian banks often force customers to agree to promotional mailings when issuing cards and invoices, it follows from complaints and court decisions on disputes with credit institutions studied by Izvestia. In some cases, this item is already included in the documents and it is impossible to cancel it separately, in others the mark is put down automatically, and the client may not even notice it.
An interlocutor of Izvestia spoke about this practice. She contacted the Rosselkhoznadzor office to open an account there, but the branch staff told her that this was impossible without consent to advertising mailings, and the employees tried to assure her that the new law on advertising allegedly obliges citizens to agree to such mailings and equates them to informing customers.
Izvestia studied the decisions of the territorial departments of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) and the courts on similar disputes for 2026, as well as customer complaints on the Banks portal.<url>" in recent months. It follows from these materials that the problem is not limited to the actions of individual employees. Sometimes consent to advertising is initially included in the standard documents of the bank or in the order of registration of services.
So, in February, the St. Petersburg Federal Antimonopoly Service issued a warning to VTB because of the Pushkin Card. The Agency found that consent to the advertisement was included in the application in advance. In another case, the antimonopoly service found out that when applying for a bank card, the client could not refuse mailings when opening an account. In March, this conclusion was supported by the Arbitration Court of the Yaroslavl region. In addition, in June, the court also confirmed the legality of the decision of the St. Petersburg FAS in another VTB case — it automatically included the advertising consent in the documents, and it was valid indefinitely.
Alfa-Bank found a similar problem. In April, the Kirovsky District Court of Ufa found that the bank documents did not allow the client to refuse advertising messages separately. The consent was included in the general terms of service, meaning it was impossible to conclude a contract without it. The court recognized that such an order does not confirm a person's voluntary consent to advertising.
At the same time, Alfa's customers also complain about non-stop promotional calls from a credit institution, which are extremely difficult to stop. So, on August 6, one of the users of "Banks.<url> reported that it continues to receive calls from the bank number after the account is closed and requests to stop notifications. A week later, he posted another review in which he talked about new calls, despite previous requests.
Gazprombank's client also complained about the automatic consent when opening an account. In May, he said that in the documents for the debit account, there was already a note about consent to promotional mailings. According to the client, the employee refused to remove it, referring to automatic filling by the system, and in response to the request, the credit institution informed that disabling mailings takes up to seven days.
Signs of a similar practice were also found in Ozon Bank. In September, the Moscow OFAS issued a warning to the financial institution. When logging into the personal account, consent to advertising could be activated automatically, without separate approval from the client. In addition, when registering a business, users were not given the opportunity to opt out of advertising messages.
Izvestia sent inquiries to all the listed banks.
Is it legal to impose consent on advertising
Pre-stamped consent to advertising is unacceptable, the press service of the Central Bank told Izvestia. The regulator monitors the transparency of banking services and pays special attention to cases when such checks are made automatically.
The inability to opt out of promotional mailings when ordering products is an unfair practice that may violate antimonopoly legislation, the FAS press service also confirmed to Izvestia.
The distribution of such messages is possible only after the client's voluntary consent, which must be issued separately from other documents, the FAS clarified. At the same time, the refusal of advertising should not affect the issuance of a loan, the Central Bank clarified.
— The problem of imposing consent to receive promotional mailings is very common in the market. Many financial organizations, including large ones, actually do not allow them to issue a financial product unless the consumer clicks the appropriate checkbox," said Alla Khrapunova, deputy head of the Popular Front for Borrowers' Rights project, curator of the Moshelovka platform.
These are not isolated failures, but systemic practices, mainly among large retail credit institutions, said Mikhail Bryukhanov, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Pervouralskbank. According to him, the problem is related to the standard forms through which mass products are processed.
When they are opened online, a mark about advertising is often placed next to the mandatory consent to the processing of personal data, explained Svyatoslav Smirnov, senior analyst at the NRA ratings of financial institutions. The check mark can be difficult to notice or impossible to remove. Sometimes the system works a little differently: the client must mark the consent himself, but without this the system does not allow to continue the design of the product, Alla Khrapunova added.
The problem is broader than advertising mailings: banks impose paid services in similar ways. As the financial Commissioner's office told Izvestia, about 40% of requests to credit institutions relate to the imposition of additional services when applying for loans. It follows from the complaints that creditors often check the boxes in advance about their consent. For car loans, these may include insurance, roadside assistance, evacuation, a replacement car, consultations, independent guarantees, and car maintenance contracts. On average, the cost of such services is one fifth of the loan.
Why is it important to complain about the imposition of advertising
If a credit institution does not allow you to refuse advertising, you should contact the FAS, Rospotrebnadzor and the Bank of Russia, advises Svyatoslav Smirnov. Screenshots, copies of documents, and recordings of conversations with employees should be attached to a complaint about a violation of the Law on Advertising.
In principle, it is important not to sign a form in which you cannot opt out of advertising, Mikhail Bryukhanov believes. It is worth asking to correct the document or issue the product in the department with a note of disagreement, while preserving the evidence. If the approval has already been given, it should be withdrawn in writing through the application with the address number saved, by registered mail or at the branch with a receipt mark.
Complaining about such situations is important because they can create risks for citizens, warned Freedom Global analyst Vladimir Chernov. Using the client's personal data, companies can create an advertising profile of a person and share information with partners, which increases the risk of unwanted requests and leaks.
The most noticeable consequence is the flow of promotional calls, SMS, push notifications and emails, Mikhail Bryukhanov noted. Among them, it's easy to miss the bank's really important messages, including security warnings. In addition, getting used to the constant calls with offers, it becomes more difficult for a person to distinguish a real employee from a scammer.
For violating the law on advertising, credit organizations face fines of up to 1.6 million rubles, recalled Svyatoslav Smirnov from the NRA. However, in practice, penalties in such cases usually amount to 200-800 thousand rubles. For a series of violations, one bank can pay several million rubles, while the advertising budgets of large credit institutions amount to hundreds of millions of rubles.
Therefore, the benefits of violating the law may outweigh the costs of fines, Vladimir Chernov believes. Promotional newsletters allow banks to promote loans, insurance, and partner products among existing customers more cheaply.
To change the situation, it is important to strengthen control over repeat cases, increase fines for systematic violators, taking into account the income of market participants, and ensure that advertising can be abandoned without changing the terms of the main product, the expert added.
As long as the benefits of expanding the advertising base outweigh the risk of punishment, banks are unlikely to want to completely abandon such practices.
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