Russia imposed bank sanctions against 41 countries

Banks should immediately report to Rosfinmonitoring about client operations (both citizens and companies) resident in 41 countries: USA, Canada, European Union (includes 28 states), Australia, Norway, Iran, Syria, Sudan, New Zealand, Argentina, Mexico , Switzerland, North Korea and Jamaica.

This follows from a letter from Rosfinmonitoring, which was recently distributed to Russian banks. If the bank neglects this requirement, its actions will be qualified as a violation of the anti-laundering 115-Federal law, the extreme measure for violating this law is withdrawing the license from the bank. Deals of clients from the newly created blacklist are considered “doubtful” and are not recommended for banks to conduct.

As can be seen from the list (see table), it is largely formed from the countries that imposed sanctions against Russia. Iran, Syria and North Korea are on the list because they do not comply with the FATF (Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering) rules. New Zealand allegedly neglects the fight against corruption, but, most likely, its inclusion in the list is associated with the support of sanctions against Russia - for the same reason, it seems that they added Switzerland. Jamaica, Mexico, Argentina are on the list due to the fact that, according to Rosfinmonitoring, they are not active enough in fighting drug trafficking.

According to the logic of Rosfinmonitoring, banks should evaluate transactions with residents from the black list countries as “suspicious”, and immediately report them to financial intelligence.

Later, Rosfinmonitoring denied imposing sanctions on banks. They explained that the letter dealt with sanctions not on banks, but on non-credit financial institutions.