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State Duma Makes it Harder for the Rich Russians
October 18, The Duma is to consider a bill, which may significantly complicate life of the rich Russians. In case deputies pass the bill, depositors wishing to withdraw a sum exceeding $20,000 from their banking accounts will have to wait for two or more days, during which financial intelligence will examine their complicacy to financing terrorism, Novye Izvestia writes.
The bill has been worked out by the pro-Kremlin United Russia deputies who believe it will “increase efficiency of the system directed against criminal money-laundering.” According to the newspaper, the bill was proposed to the parliament yet in May and has been unanimously approved by the Duma Security Committee since then.
Novye Izvestia explains that any Russian person with $20,000 or more on his account who comes to the bank to get his money will not be able to do so immediately. To start with, the bank will block the account for two days and direct the information on the client’s “excessive” wish to the Federal Financial Monitoring Service (FSFM).
During the two days, financial intelligence will have to examine whether the depositor is connected to financing terrorism and if everything is fine, allow the bank to “defreeze” the money. However, if FSFM fails to do the check on time, the bill allows it to block the suspicious account for five more days.
However, bankers criticize United Russia’s initiative, since they believe it will lead to a new outflow of depositors from the banks and retreat of cash into the shadow. Moreover, the bill will give a headache to finance intelligence which may simply fail to do all the more growing volumes of work.
Meanwhile, Russian businessmen are facing a threat of losing their property in the former Soviet Countries, Novye Izvestia writes. Thus, the Moldovan parliament has cancelled results of the large-scale privatization held on the left bank of the Dniestr in the self-proclaimed Transdniestr Republic. The newspaper notes that when two years ago Tiraspol (the republic’s capital) started selling out its plants and factories, Russia’s private and state structures were their main buyers, spending millions of dollars to buy Transdniestr enterprises.
The law was initiated by Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin, who thus hopes to “withdraw” Russia from all processes going on in the region.
The decision of Moldovan deputies may as well create a precedent and cause other countries like Georgia to follow in its steps. Georgia has long been exasperated by the fact the all the Abkhazian health resorts and mansions are being sold to Russian businessmen. Tbilisi has already warned Moscow it would consider all the deals signed without its approval as illegal. Only the conflicts in Adzharia and South Ossetia have temporarily shifted the problem to the background.
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