Seems like Russsia is moving towards restoring banking secrecy. This was published in one of the main news outlets

[5K1PP3R]

The government decided to ban sharing banking secrets with foreigners
Banks under this law will be required to report inquiries from abroad about their clients to Rosfinmonitoring and the Central Bank. They will be able to satisfy requests from abroad only if they comply with the laws of Russia
The government submitted to the State Duma amendments to the law "On measures of influence (counteraction) on unfriendly actions of the United States and other foreign states." The document is registered in the legislative framework of the parliament.

The amendments provide for a ban on Russian banks to provide foreign countries with data on customers and their operations.

"Credit institutions are prohibited from providing the competent authorities of foreign states with the information requested by such authorities about clients and their operations, except for the cases provided for in part 2 of this article," the bill reads.

As stated in the explanatory note, the bill was developed to minimize the risks "associated with the adoption by unfriendly states of amendments to national legislative acts aimed at obtaining confidential information constituting banking secrets from foreign banks under the threat of penalties."

In addition, banks will be obliged to inform the Federal Financial Monitoring Service and the Bank of Russia about receiving requests from foreign authorities within 24 hours after receiving a request from abroad.

There is only one exception - if a response to a request can be provided if it complies with Russian legislation and regulations.

As previously told by RBC sources, the draft law was developed by the Ministry of Finance. The expert opinion to the bill said that the US Treasury and the US Department of Justice now have the right to demand such data from any foreign banks if they have a correspondent account in the US. A similar right appeared with American government agencies from January 1, 2021, according to the adopted Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020 (the AML Act). U.S. authorities can request a foreign bank for any account if one of the following conditions is met:

the account is the subject of a criminal investigation in the United States;
the account is subject to anti-money laundering proceedings in the United States;
In relation to this account, the procedure for confiscating funds into US income has been initiated.
The bill does not restrict the application of this norm only to countries included in the list of unfriendly countries, it applies to any foreign states.

The United States and the Czech Republic are now on the list of countries unfriendly to Russia. Participants in the NATO summit in Brussels adopted a statement calling for the exclusion of Russia and the Czech Republic from this list. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that so far there are no grounds to expect a revision of this list. “Before this order, there was simply no legal basis, now it has appeared, and, accordingly, there is no reason to expect that the list will be revised,” Ryabkov said.

According to him, in order for Russia to exclude the United States from the list, Washington must "stop pursuing an unfriendly policy."

https://www.rbc.ru/politics/15/06/2021/60c8d76e9a7947285a8e0632
Thoughts? How does it relate to Common Reporting Standard (CRS)?

 

[JackAlabama]

https://www.rbc.ru/politics/15/06/2021/60c8d76e9a7947285a8e0632
Thoughts? How does it relate to Common Reporting Standard (CRS)?

Did Russia actually even report in practice?

 

[MiddleEuroAsia]

Did Russia actually even report in practice?

yes, same in asia with "CRS" countries, some bank employees in Thailand for example don't even know what a CRS is lol.

plenty of countries don't have the budget nor the luxury to implement ridiculous laws that doesn't benefit anyone other than the EU.

 

[uplana]

Sounds very interesting. The EU want to let us all know that CRS is a reality and the USA want to let us know FATCA & co is a reality, fact is, there are plenty of countries where you can hide your money if you know how to do.

 

[Cetme308win]

Probably they are working in a SWIFT alternative with China that would help restore bank secrecy

 

[MiddleEuroAsia]

Probably they are working in a SWIFT alternative with China that would help restore bank secrecy

Yeah they wanted to do that and it's called the SPFS, about 400 banks or less are connected to this system and most of them are Russians, the problem with shiny statement like this article that says "China, Russia & India Push Forward on SWIFT Alternative" is that they don't look at the reality of the situation and what's happening on the ground, in terms of china, only one Chinese bank is connected to this system and it's bank of china and that's according to the Russian Central Bank's website. however, there are other interesting participants like SEB bank (one of the best banks in Sweden) and credit agricole (a French bank).

and there are concerns that Russia might get cut off from SWIFT banking payment, but although government officials think that the US and partners won't act on this anytime soon.

So, yeah, it will be interesting to see how this whole thing will play out and if more Chinese banks (or any foreign bank) would be more open to this new banking network (but I have my doubts about that).

 

[uplana]

So while the time not stops and we are moving forward to develop new technology it can't come to a surprise that endless financial institutions already developing their own network using blockchain, how long will it take before we see a revolutionary alternative to the SWIFT and even IBAN network replaced by some sort of blockchain technology?

I believe the time is in for it and we soon will realize that we have alternatives and they will come soon.

 

[Cetme308win]

So while the time not stops and we are moving forward to develop new technology it can't come to a surprise that endless financial institutions already developing their own network using blockchain, how long will it take before we see a revolutionary alternative to the SWIFT and even IBAN network replaced by some sort of blockchain technology?

I believe the time is in for it and we soon will realize that we have alternatives and they will come soon.

I agree with that! The future is a descentralized network based in blockchain where nobody can disconnect a participant and where transfers would be cheaper & faster.

 

[Piano]

Let’s hope it becomes a reality sooner or later

 

[Hydrogene75]

By the time Russia restores banking secrecy, the EU and US will already be cutting it off the SWIFT system. They're not gonna give Russia the chance to become the largest tax haven and money laundering country

 

[CoffeeExpert]

I believe that Russia will use Universa blockchain for its SWIFT replacement. $UTNP

 

[MiddleEuroAsia]

By the time Russia restores banking secrecy, the EU and US will already be cutting it off the SWIFT system. They're not gonna give Russia the chance to become the largest tax haven and money laundering country

The US is already one of the biggest tax haven AND bank secrecy country in the world, but that's for non Americans. if you're American tho, either renounce or you're fucked. I've some great relationship with some bankers and hedge fund managers there, but despite all the benefits, there is no way in hell, I'm gonna get a green card or having any American residency or citizenship anytime soon, I like the friends with benefits phase, but I'm not a marriage type of guy.

when it comes to russia tho, there are interesting projects/industries that you could play with, same with iran. But I don't think banking your money there is safe? for a lack of better word. investing in strategic investments that's gonna give you some returns with certain power/influence is better in second and third world countries, ministries in these countries give you "special" treatment, don't ask a lot of questions, and generally, they want to get s**t done and they help you with that.
But I've never tried with russia tho, but I could see it as an interesting option, and funneling money won't be that hard I believe, mediums between russia and the western banking system could be a lot of things , for example: crypto, traditional mediums like Switzerland, UK, Malta, Cyprus, Latvia...etc or allies like china (through hongkong), maybe unorthodox solutions like Egypt?, certain banks in UAE I believe could work too.

But yeah, to address the elephant in the room, swift alternative, ha? that would be interesting, but I don't know if this is the future for russia and china financial systems, specially when both china and russia central banks consider issuing their own stable digital currency (And china already did) to provide faster payments and avoid sanctions.

Would there be a need for a swift alternative then? or would russia and china combine the SPFS with their digital currency, and create a swift like system that's backed by digital ruble and digital yuan? who knows only future will tell.

 

[EuroKiss]

China, Russia, Iran, India and a lot of more countries urgently need a SWIFT alternative, but there is a catch.
China cannot detach its economy from a strong international monetary value like the Dollar, since they base their success over an under-valued Yuan. If a SWIFT alternative takes off, the risk is a lost of value of dollar, and even if this is a nightmare for US elite (since US only exporting products are weapons and greens) Chinese government don’t see this option as a desired one either.

 

[wojtem]

By the time Russia restores banking secrecy, the EU and US will already be cutting it off the SWIFT system. They're not gonna give Russia the chance to become the largest tax haven and money laundering country

No chance! I do not need to like Russia but I do appreciate their newly proposed law which would destroy CRS. Good on them!

 

[countryfree]

Sure, you can send money in Russia, and hide it there. Just one question: when the money is in Russia, can you bring it back to the West?

 

[wojtem]

Sure, you can send money in Russia, and hide it there. Just one question: when the money is in Russia, can you bring it back to the West?

Why not?

 

[Vor]

Question is how hard is it to get an account at a Russian bank as a non resident? Could be an interesting place to hide funds if it isn't a total nightmare for a foreigner to get an account.

 

[MiddleEuroAsia]

Sure, you can send money in Russia, and hide it there. Just one question: when the money is in Russia, can you bring it back to the West?

of course you can, but the issue is currency control, however, businesses/people in Russia, china, India and any country that has any form of foreign/hard currency control get around this by lots of methods, but the past couple of years, crypto was a popular option, specially p2p crypto, where you send whatever amount of money to the other party in local currency, exchange it for crypto (specially stablecoins), and then sell the crypto for dollars/Euros/swissfrancs and bank it offshore.

so, local money>p2p crypto>stable coins>exchange it for eur/usd>offshore bank account

there are other methods, like local exchanges (not crypto, just regular money exchanges, something like western union but local). in these cases, these exchanges have some sort of relationships with western banks, and all you have to do, is you send them the money in local currency, and they transfer the same amount in usd/euro/whatever from their bank accounts overseas to your offshore bank account.

So, yeah, it's not THAT hard, it just requires you to plan carefully and that's it. if there's a will, there's a way.

 

[csp dubai]

do we have any contrete news ?or is just a rumor, in case they will procceed good luck to russia to save freedom
the old good day of urss

 

[FinTech Avenger]

Banking secrecy in Russia is de facto non-existent due to the corruption levels (both on state agencies and banks level).

For example, you'd usually be able to acquire someone's else bank statement from Sberbank (largest state-backed bank conglomerate) for 15-20 thousand roubles (circa 300 USD).