Law on the registry of “drops” may hit ordinary people – Yuzhanina
2 November 16:11
The register of “drops” proposed in the draft law No. 14161 on the creation of a register of persons who transfer their accounts or cards for use by others contains risks that could affect ordinary citizens. This was warned by MP Nina Yuzhanina, cited by "Komersant Ukrainian".
“The idea looks logical: fighting those who help fraudsters conduct “gray” or fictitious transactions. But the proposed mechanism raises more questions than answers,” she said.
According to her, according to the draft law, banks and financial institutions will enter into the register of persons whose transactions have “signs of account transfer”.
“However, the draft law does not contain any definition of what exactly constitutes a ‘transfer of accounts’. The NBU will define the signs, and banks will define their own internal rules. That is, everything is like with financial monitoring: non-transparent, without clear criteria, without the right of a person to know why he or she was included in the list,” she emphasized.
Background: how the NBU fights against “drops”
This is not the first attempt by the Ukrainian authorities to tighten control over financial schemes.
In October, the NBU proposed to complicate the procedure for closing individual entrepreneurs to prevent them from being used in shadow transfers.
At the same time, according to the NBU, the segment of P2P transfers (transfers between cards of individuals) has decreased after the introduction of limits, but the use of drops is still significant.
Fighting shadow schemes
According to analysts, the shadow turnover of funds through drops has become one of the key challenges to the country’s financial security. The introduction of the registry should help identify participants in such schemes and stop their activities before they are abused.
However, experts warn that excessive expansion of banks’ powers can create risks for bona fide users if there are no clear criteria for who is included in the register.
Draft Law No. 14161 is pending consideration by the relevant committee of the Verkhovna Rada. If it is adopted, the registry could be launched as early as 2026 after the technical base is created and the rules for entering data are approved.
