Russian banks have explained why they have practiced card blocking and requested documents to justify transfers of small amounts, Kommersant reports. 
Earlier, Invest Foresight reported that Sberbank, B&N Bank and Tinkoff Bank requested that their customers “justify the economic grounds” for card-to-card transfers of small amounts (up to RUR 1,000). Lending institutions assured that there was no systemwide blocking of their customers’ cards. There were instead individual requests on suspicion of fraud.
“Criteria for auditing customers’ financial transactions are strictly established by law while person-to-person money transfers are beyond the scope of control,” a Sberbank representative commented.
B&N Bank informed that it did not introduce any new requirements for customers involved in p2p transfers. Tinkoff Bank noted that the lending organizations are entitled by law to block a transfer on suspicion of fraud, irrespective of the amount.
“We should not rule out the fact that the banks are testing a system to monitor self-employed people’s funds,” tax expert and Uproshyonka (‘simplified taxation’) website director Nikolai Yepikhin said. “If a person is involved in p2p transfers, it means he is sending money to a self-employed or is himself self-employed. Therefore, he can be later subject to tax or a penalty for not paying taxes. As concerns the requirement ‘to justify the economic grounds’, it is a very strange combination of criminal slang and philosophy. Sending money to another person does not require any economic grounds or any grounds whatsoever. It is not against the law. The banks can only ask their customers one thing: did they indeed perform the transaction or was it fraudulent?”