Over the year, the number of reports of suspicious financial transactions increased by 23%

Last year, the State Financial Monitoring Service received 1,750,940 reports on financial transactions that are subject to control. A significant part of them – 82% – related to threshold transactions, and 99% of the messages came from banking institutions. According to the results of the checks, suspicious transactions in the amount of UAH 62.5 billion were revealed, which were handed over to the relevant law enforcement agencies. About this informs The opendatabase.

Over the year, the number of reports on financial transactions increased by 23%. The bulk of such notifications (99%) came from banks, while non-bank institutions (credit unions, pawnshops, insurance companies, etc.) send a much smaller number of requests.

In general, the number of reports of suspicious transactions has increased significantly in recent years. If in 2021 they accounted for only 5% of the total number of appeals, then last year their share increased to 18%. However, the absolute majority of reports received by the State Financial Monitoring Service still concern threshold transactions – 82% or 1.44 million cases.

After analyzing the messages received, more than a thousand materials were transferred to the relevant law enforcement agencies. The total sum of the funds in respect of which suspicion arose amounted to UAH 62.59 billion. The largest share of materials was sent to:

• National Police – 31% (323 cases);
• Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) – 27% (289 cases);
• National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) – 15% (156 cases);
• State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) – 11% (118 cases);
• Economic Security Bureau (BEB) – 9% (95 cases);
• Office of the Prosecutor General – 7% (71 cases);
• Intelligence agencies – 1 case (0.1%).

Thus, the National Police (31%) and the SBU (27%) received the most materials related to financial fraud, and the total amount of transactions referred to these bodies for consideration reached UAH 37.39 billion.

Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the number of materials transferred to the SBI has increased by 3.3 times (to 118 cases). At the same time, the number of materials submitted to the Bureau of Economic Security decreased by 2.5 times – to 95 cases. This may indicate a change in priorities in the fight against financial crimes.

The fewest cases were sent to the General Prosecutor’s Office – 71 cases (7%), and the only material got to the intelligence agencies.

State Financial Monitoring checks two main types of financial transactions: threshold and suspicious.

• Threshold transactions are transactions in the amount of UAH 400,000 or more, which have one of the signs of financial risk. Such risks include suspicion of financing terrorism, fraud in foreign economic transactions, large cash circulation, transactions with persons who have political influence.
• Suspicious financial transactions are any transactions, regardless of the amount, that raise suspicions of money laundering or terrorist financing. The main criteria for verification are inconsistency of the declared information, abnormal behavior of the person and other suspicious factors.