Russian Banks Propose Fivefold Increase in Fraud Response Speed

The Association of Russian Banks (ARB) has suggested to the Central Bank a new way to improve the fight against fraud by establishing direct data exchange between banks using the existing FinCERT platform. According to industry practice, fraudsters typically withdraw or transfer stolen funds within an hour, and banks often do not have enough time to stop these actions.

The ARB estimates that the new protocol could speed up the sharing of information among interested parties by up to five times, and in some cases, reduce the response time to just 20–30 minutes.

Current Fraud Response Process

Currently, all information about suspicious transactions is first sent to the automated FinCERT system (ASOI), which processes the data and returns a consolidated result to the banks. According to the newspaper “Izvestia,” this process can take several hours or even days. Bankers hope that their initiative will significantly accelerate incident response and improve the effectiveness of countermeasures.

Direct Data Exchange and Risk Ranking

The ARB proposes organizing direct data exchange between banks using the existing FinCERT system, which has proven itself as a secure and trusted communication channel. The authors of the initiative also suggest introducing a ranking system for suspicious transactions, distinguishing between higher-risk and lower-risk cases.

Lower-risk cases include situations where a bank client, for example, forgets about a purchase or a subscription to a service. Blocking such a transaction would be a mistake. Although banks usually correct these errors quickly, the ARB believes that such incidents negatively affect the customer experience and can distract information security teams from more dangerous transactions.

Industry Support and Statistics

The ARB’s initiative has been supported by major Russian financial institutions, including VTB, MKB, Rosbank, and Tinkoff. The regulator has promised to review the new proposals.

According to the Central Bank, in the first half of this year, the total losses from unauthorized banking operations amounted to about 4 billion rubles. In 2019, fraudsters stole 6.5 billion rubles from Russian accounts.

Additional Information

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