The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted draft law No. 11043, which expands the powers of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) in the field of financial market regulation. About this reported Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Tax and Customs Policy Yaroslav Zheleznyak.
270 People’s Deputies voted for the bill in the second reading. The new law is aimed at strengthening the fight against financial fraud, in particular with schemes that involve the use of “drops” – people who, for a reward, provide their bank details to third parties for conducting illegal transactions.
Zheleznyak noted that during the review, amendments were rejected, which proposed to grant the National Police partial access to information on citizens’ bank accounts.
The problem of “drops” is that their card accounts are used as transit for transferring and laundering illegal funds. According to the NBU’s estimates, about 200 billion hryvnias pass through such accounts annually. In the last six months alone, banks in Ukraine have terminated more than 80,000 “drops” that contributed to illegal financial transactions.
The NBU also estimates that the average volume of financial transactions of one “drop” can reach 2.5 million hryvnias per year.
